CAUSES  AND  EFFECTS 
IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY 


"SANTA  MARIA,"  FLAGSHIP  OF  COLUMBUS'S  FLEET,  IN  DUPLICATE. 

Arriving  at  New  York  from  Spain,  in  1893,  to  take  part  in  the 
World's  Columbian  Exposition. 


CAUSES  AND  EFFECTS 
IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  ORIGIN 
AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  NATION 


BY 

EDWIN  W.   MORSE 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS,   FACSIMILES,  AND  MAPS 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
1912 


HISTORfl, 


Copyright,  1912,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

Published  September,  1912 


TO 

EVERY    LOVER    OF    HIS    COUNTRY 

WHO    HAS    PRIDE    IN    ITS    PAST 

AND    FAITH    IN    ITS    FUTURE 


248421 


PREFACE 

FEW  things  are  drier  or  duller  than  the  bare  facts  of  his 
tory.  Few  things  are  more  interesting  than  the  reasons 
why  great  events  happened  as  they  did  and  why  the  con 
sequences  of  these  happenings  were  -what  they  were.  Few 
things  are  more  difficult  than  to  prevent  a  multiplicity  of 
details  from  crowding  into  an  historical  picture  and  from 
obscuring  what  is  essential,  significant,  important. 

This  narrative  ignores  details.  It  deals  not  so  much 
with  facts  as  with  causes  and  effects — with  the  large  cur 
rents  of  thought,  feeling,  and  action  which  from  generation 
to  generation,  especially  through  the  economic  and  intel 
lectual  influences. of  each  period,  have  modified  and  shaped 
the  destinies  of  the  American  people.  The  purpose  of  the 
book  is  thus  to  supply  to  the  imagination  a  key  to  the  real 
meaning  of  the  evolutions,  often  complex  and  apparently 
confusing,  of  the  historical  pageant  as  it  passes  across  the 
stage. 

If  this  purpose  has  been  accomplished  with  the  sim 
plicity,  clearness,  and  accuracy  for  which  the  author  has 
striven  throughout,  the  book  should  prove  equally  service 
able  as  an  introduction  to  American  history  which,  by 
indicating  its  larger  relations  of  cause  and  effect,  .will  in 
spire  younger  readers  with  a  zeal  for  further  and  more 
intimate  study,  and  as  an  interpretation  of  American  his 
tory  which  may  give  a  new  meaning  to  facts  already  famil- 


viii  PREFACE 

iar  to  older  readers.  Both  of  these  classes  of  readers  will 
find  that  the  emphasis  in  this  account  of  the  development 
of  the  nation  has  been  laid  not  upon  the  evolution  of  politi 
cal  parties,  except  in  so  far  as  parties  became  the  instru 
ments  for  the  advancement  of  great  political,  economic,  or 
moral  ideas,  but  upon  the  important  parts  which  intel 
lectual  and  religious  freedom,  industrial  and  commercial 
activity,  and  even  literature  and  the  fine  arts,  not  to  include 
other  kindred  influences,  have  played  in  shaping  the  life 
of  the  people. 

A  glance  at  the  illustrations  will  suffice  to  show  that 
they  have  been  selected  solely  for  their  historical  value  as 
a  pictorial  commentary,  contemporaneous  whenever  pos 
sible,  upon  the  more  salient  features  of  the  narrative. 

E.  W.  M. 


CONTENTS 


DISCOVERERS 

PAGE 

Why  the  Northmen  migrated  from  Norway  to  Iceland  .         3 

How  Eric  the  Red  came  to  discover  Greenland         ...         4 
Leif,  Eric's  son,  reaches  Vinland  (probably  Nova  Scotia)  by 

accident 5 

Why  no  effort  was  made  to  extend  the  discoveries  ...         5 
Marco  Polo  and  others  bring  news  from  the  far  East      .         .         6 

Necessity  of  a  water  route  to  Asia 6 

Efforts  of  Prince  Henry  of  Portugal  to  solve  the  problem      .         6 

Columbus  turns  his  eyes  to  the  west 7 

His  four  voyages  in  search  of  Cipango  (Japan)  and  Cathay 

(China) 

He  dies  without  realizing  that  he  has  discovered  a  new  hemi 
sphere      

Vasco  da  Gama  rounds  Africa  and  reaches  the  Indies     . 

Voyages  of  the  Cabots  made  the  basis  for  English  claims  10 

Origin  of  the  name  America n 


II 

EXPLORERS    AND    CONQUERORS 

Spain  at  the  height  of  her  power   .          .  .12 

Results  of  the  expeditions  of  Balboa  and  Magellan  12 

Discoveries  of  Cartier  and  Drake   . 

Conquest  of  Mexico  and  Peru  by  Cortes  and  Pizarro  13 

Explorations  of  De  Vaca,  De  Soto,  and  Coronado  13 

French  interest  in  exploration  half-hearted     . 
Voyages  of  Verrazzano  and  Gomez 

Cartier 's  voyages  establish  the  French  claim  to  Canada  16 

Decline  in  the  energy  of  Spanish  exploration  .  J6 

ix 


x  CONTENTS 

Massacre  of  the  French  Huguenots  in  Florida  by  Menendez 
de  Aviles  .         .         . 

Attitude  of  Spain  toward  heretics 

English  enterprise  under  Elizabeth 

What  Hawkins  and  Drake  accomplished          .... 
Influence  of  Hakluyt's  collections  of  narratives 
Effects  of  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish  Armada 


III 

COLONISTS 

Two  main  streams  flow  from  England 22 

Early  Jamestown  settlers  in  search  of  gold  or  a  way  to  the 

South  Sea  (Pacific) 22 

John  Rolfe  develops  tobacco  culture 22 

Negro  slave  labor  introduced  by  a  Dutch  vessel      .         .         .22 
Influence  of  these  incidents  upon  the  civilization  of  Virginia 

and  Maryland 24 

Motives  of  the  Pilgrims  in  leaving  Holland    ....  24 

Sailing  for  Virginia,  chance  carries  them  to  Massachusetts    .  25 
The  Puritans  leave  England  to  make  homes  and  to  secure 

religious  freedom      ......  26 

Causes  of  the  Cavalier  migration  to  Virginia            ...  26 

The  descendants,  of  these  families 27 

The  Dutch,  following  Henry  Hudson,  reveal  a  greater  genius 

for  trade  than  for  government 27 

The  English  take  possession  of  New  Amsterdam  in  1664         .  28 

Settlement  of  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania      ....  28 

Both  possess  proprietary  forms  of  government         .                   .  28 
Turbulence  and  disorder  in  the  Carolinas        .                            .20 

The  Virginia  colonists  stay  in  the  Church  of  England  .         .  29 
Great  influence  of  the  Congregational  church  and  ministry 

in  New  England 30 

Desire  for  peace  and  quiet  the  cause  of  religious  persecutions  30 
The  Hartford  and  New  Haven  colonies  independent  common 
wealths 3! 

Penn  and  his  Quaker  followers 31 

Influence  of  Roger  Williams  and  Penn  with  the  Indians         .  32 

Causes  of  Bacon's  rebellion -32 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGE 

Importance  of  the  alliance  of  the  Dutch,  and  later  the 

English,  with  the  Five  Nations 32 

A  bulwark  against  the  French  and  their  Algonquin  allies  from 

the  north 33 

Educational  matters  in  Massachusetts,  Virginia,  and  New 

Netherland 33 

Harvard  College  founded  in  1636 33 

IV 

NEW    FRANCE    IN    AMERICA 

Motives  of  the  French  in  establishing  settlements  in  Canada  35 
Their  policy  as  carried  out  by  Champlain  and  his  successors  35 
Character  and  achievements  of  Champlain  ....  36 
How  the  alliance  between  the  Five  Nations  and  the  Dutch 

was  brought  about 36 

Marquette  and  Joliet  reach  the  Mississippi  River  ...  38 
By  floating  to  its  mouth  La  Salle,  in  1682,  establishes  the 

French  claim  to  the  water-shed  of  the  Mississippi  .  40 
Quebec  for  a  few  years  in  the  hands  of  the  English  ...  40 
Effects  in  America  of  the  wars  between  England  and  France 

from  1688  to  1763 42 

Efforts  of  Count  Frontenac  and  his  successors  to  keep  the 
Five  Nations  neutral  and  the  New  England  tribes  hostile 

to  the  English 43 

The  massacre  at  Deerfield,  Mass 44 

William  Pitt  the  elder  plans  to  break  down  the  French  bar 
rier  to  the  westward  expansion  of  the  English  colonies  .       44 
George  Washington's  first  appearance  on  the  historical  stage       44 
The  French  power  finally  broken  by  the  fall  of  Quebec  and 

Montreal -45 

V 

GROWTH    OF    THE    COLONIES 

Consequences  of  the  revolution  in  1688  placing  William  and 

Mary  on  the  English  throne   .         .  47 

English  origin  of  the  witchcraft  delusion  47 

Royal  governors  under  William       ....  4^ 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Causes  of  annoyance  and  irritation  .  .  .  .  .50 
Pennsylvania  and  Maryland  under  proprietary  governments 

until  the  Revolutionary  War 51 

Diversified  pursuits  of  the  people 52 

Changes  in  the  social,  religious,  and  political  life  of  the  people  52 
Cause  of  the  beginning  of  the  decline  in  influence  of  the  New 

England  ministry 52 

Reaction  from  the  severity  of  Puritan  rule  ....  53 
The  "Great  Revival"  seeks  to  bring  men  back  to  the  old 

standards ,  .  .  -53 

Presbyterianism  establishes  itself  in  the  Valley  of  Virginia  .  54 

Advances  in  popular  education 54 

Private  instruction  in  Virginia         ......  54 

Newspapers  begin  publication  in  Boston,  Philadelphia,  New 

York,  and  elsewhere 56 

Foundations  of  institutions  of  higher  learning  laid  .  .  56 

VI 

RESISTANCE    TO    BRITISH    TYRANNY 

No  precedents  to  guide  the  King  and  his  ministers           .         .       59 
The  British  answer  to  the  " Boston  massacre"        ...       59 
Danger  to  the  King  of  yielding  to  the  colonists      ...       60 
Unable  to  understand  that  principle,  not  expediency,  gov 
erned  the  Americans 60 

Difference  between  the  Stamp  Act  and  the  Townshend  acts       62 

The  aim  of  Lord  North's  bills 62 

New  York,  at  first  wavering,  sides  finally  with   her  sister 

provinces 64 

Massachusetts  and  Virginia  stand  together     ....       64 

Patrick  Henry  an  eloquent  leader 64 

All  the  colonies   make  common   cause  with  Massachusetts 

after  the  port  of  Boston  is  closed 64 

Samuel  Adams  the  creator  of  the  bond  of  union     ...       65 

The  first  Continental  Congress  meets 65 

Why  the  colonists  as  a  whole  had  at  this  time  no  desire  for 

independence    

Views  of  Franklin,  Jefferson,  and  Washington  on  independence 
Separation  finally  accepted  as  the  only  solution  of  the  problem 
Samuel  Adams  always  working  for  that  end  . 


CONTENTS  xiii 


VII 

INDEPENDENCE    BY    REVOLUTION 

PAGE 

Evacuation  of  Boston  by  the  British  .....  69 
Washington's  resourcefulness  after  defeat  in  the  battle  of 

Long  Island 69 

Significance  of  Trenton  and  Princeton 70 

Effect  of  Paine's  Common  Sense  ......  70 

The  Declaration  of  Independence 70 

The  victory  of  Saratoga  leads  to  the  treaty  with  France  .  72 

And  makes  any  further  incursion  from  Canada  impossible  .  72 
Washington's  share  in  the  Saratoga  campaign  .  .  .72 
Compensations  for  the  battles  of  the  Brandywine  and  Ger- 

mantown 72 

French  help  secured  under  the  treaty 74 

Charles  Lee's  treachery  at  Monmouth 74 

Washington's  two  strategic  principles 75 

What  was  accomplished  by  this  policy 75 

Military  inefficiency  of  Howe  and  Clinton  ....  76 

Energy  and  ability  of  General  Greene 76 

Washington's  plan  to  entrap  Cornwallis  ....  78 

Aid  from  the  French  fleet 78 

How  the  surrender  at  Yorktown  was  brought  about  .  .  79 

Treaty  of  peace  signed -79 

Part  played  in  the  war  by  American  privateers  .  .  79 

Paul  Jones's  exploit  in  the  Bonhomme  Richard  ...  80 
Character  of  Washington  .  .80 
The  obstacles  which  he  overcame  .  .80 

VIII 

THIRTEEN   JEALOUS    STATES 

The  situation  at  the  end  of  the  war  .  82 
Changes  in  the  direction  of  greater  freedom  .  .  83 
Prohibition  of  the  slave  trade  and  gradual  emancipation  fore 
shadowed  ....  83 
Origin  and  growth  of  the  idea  of  federation  .  84 
Why  the  federal  union  proposed  by  Franklin  in  1754  was 

rejected 84 


xiv  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Defects  of  the  Articles  cf  Confederation          ....       86 

The  states  jealous  of  their  rights 87 

Washington's  plan  for  a  national  system         ....       87 

How  Maryland  took  the  leadership  toward  this  goal       .         .       88 
The  Ordinance  of  1787  a  result       ......       88 

Its  provisions  and  its  significance   ....  .89 

Causes  which  made  the  Ordinance  of  1787  possible         .          .       89 

The  fear  of  anarchy  or  civil  war .89 

The  Constitutional  Convention  called  to  avert  this  danger   .        91 


IX 

UNION    UNDER    THE    CONSTITUTION 

The  Constitutional  Convention  a  representative  body  .         .  92 

The  result  of  its  deliberations  a  remarkable  document    .         .  92 
Important  provisions  based  on  compromises    .                  .         .93 

The  Federalist  essays  as  an  interpretation  of  the  Constitution  94 

All  the  states  finally  ratify  the  Constitution  .          ...  95 

The  Federalist  party  win  the  first  election      ....  95 

Organization  of  the  new  government 95 

--Hamilton's  qualities  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  ...  96 

His  financial  and  economic  policy 96 

What  he  hoped  to  accomplish 97 

The  Republican  party  favors  a  strict   construction    of    the 

Constitution     .........  97 

Effects  of  foreign  affairs  on  both  parties           ....  98 

The  power  of  the  Federalists  begins  to  wane  ....  98 

Jay  negotiates  a  treaty  with  England  in  order  to  avert  war  99 
American  commerce  stimulated  as  a  consequence   ...  99 
The  Alien  and  Sedition  laws  the  crowning  blunder  of  the  Fed 
eralists       QQ 

Purpose  of  the  Kentucky  and  Virginia  resolutions  .         .         .  100 

Demoralized,  the  Federalists  lose  the  election  of  1800     .         .  ico 

Far-reaching  effects  of  the  invention  of  the  cotton-gin         .  102 

Cotton  mills  and  other  industries  established           .         .         .  102 

Application  of  steam  power  to  boats 103 

Rapid  increase  in  population  .         .  v 103 

New  states  admitted  to  the  federal  Union       ....  104 
The  centre  of  population  moves  westward      .         .         .         .104 


X 

CONTENTS  xv 


X 

AN    ERA    OF    EXPANSION 


PAGE 


The  purchase  of  Louisiana  by  Jefferson 105 

Jefferson's  passion  for  peace    ....  .  106 

New  influences  of  the  American  democracy     ....     107 
What  the  Louisiana  purchase  embraced  .  107 

Lewis  and  Clark  cross  the  continent 108 

Captain  Gray  discovers  and  names  the  Columbia  River         .     no 

The  expeditions  of  Captain  Pike in 

Fulton  drives  the  Clermont  to  Albany  and   back   by   steam 

power .112 

Steam  power  revolutionizes  inland  water  transportation          .     112 
The  Barbary  pirates  are  subdued    .         .         .         .         .         .112 

New  England  whale  fisheries    ....  .114 

American  vessels  in  the  foreign  trade      .         .         .         .         .114 

Character  of  the  exports  and  imports 115 

The  population  in  1810    ...  .116 

XI 

THE    WAR    OF    l8l2    AND    ITS    CAUSES 

Attitude  of  Jefferson  toward  the  merchant  marine  .         .     117 
Indignities  inflicted  upon  American  sailors  and  vessels         .     117 

England's  desire  to  cripple  American  commerce      .  .     117 

Results  of  her  policy  of  impressing  American  seamen  .         .     117 

England's  defense  of  this  policy      .  .118 

How  American  shipping  suffered     .  .119 

The  object  of  the  embargo      .  IT9 

The  Non-intercourse  law  takes  its  place  •     120 

Popular  resentment  increases           .         .  .120 

War  is  declared       ....  .120 

Victories  of  American  frigates          .  .122 

Reasons  for  American  superiority  on  the  sea  .  .123 

The  battles  of  Lake  Erie  and  Lake  Champlain        .  124 

The  battle  of  New  Orleans      .  .124 

Influences  which  brought  about  peace     .  .124 
Ravages  of  American  privateers 

The  Federalists  as  a  party  disappear       ...  .126 


xvi  CONTENTS 

XII 

INDUSTRIAL    DEVELOPMENT 

PAGE 

The  tide  of  migration  sets  westward 127 

The  Cumberland  Road  constructed 127 

The  Erie  Canal  completed  in  1825 127 

Other  canal  systems  built 128 

Railroad  construction  after  1830 130 

Locomotive  engines  come  into  use 130 

Increase  of  population  in  the  West  and  Southwest  .  .  .  130 
The  tide  of  immigration  begins  to  flow  heavily  .  .  .132 
Causes  and  quality  of  this  immigration  .  .  .  .  .132 

Numbers  and  destinations  of  these  immigrants        .         .         .  134 

Inventions  and  new  industries 134 

Expansion  of  the  national  domain 135 

The  Floridas  purchased  and  Texas  wins  its  independence          .  135 

Causes  and  results  of  the  war  with  Mexico     .         .         .         .  135 

Gold  is  discovered  in  California 136 

New  states  received  into  the  federal  Union     ....  137 

Tariff  legislation  from  1816  to  1846 137 

Andrew  Jackson  represents  the  new  democracy       .         .         .  137 

Economic  changes  in  the  South 138 

The  panic  of  1837  and  its  causes 138 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  enunciated 139 


XIII 

HIGH    TIDE    OF    AMERICAN    COMMERCE 

Activity  of  American  shipping  interests  after  the  War  of  1812  141 

Packet  ships  for  north  Atlantic  service   .....  142 

A  prosperous  decade  for  American  shipping    ....  144 

English  jealousy  and  alarm 144 

American  ships  make  world-wide  voyages       ....  145 

The  New  England  whalemen   .......  145 

Causes  of  the  decline  in  the  whaling  industry          .         .         .  146 

Steam  power  applied  to  vessels  for  transatlantic  service         .  146 

The  Cunard  line  established 146 

Ericsson  invents  the  screw  propeller        .....  147 


CONTENTS  xvii 


PAGE 


American  and  British  steamships    .  ....     147 

Congress  changes  its  attitude  regarding  subsidies   .         .         .     148 

Disasters  to  the  Collins  line  steamships 148 

Tonnage  figures  of  American  shipping I48 

Supremacy  of  American  clipper  ships 150 

Exports  chiefly  agricultural  products 151 

Causes  of  the  decline  in  American  shipping     .         .         .         .152 

Outlook  for  the  merchant  marine    .         .         .         .         .         .153 

Free  materials  for  shipbuilding 153 


XIV 

GOLDEN    AGE    OF    AMERICAN    LETTERS 

Early  sensitiveness  to  English  criticism 155 

Influences  toward  literary  expression 156 

Scott,  Byron,  and  Goethe 156 

Effects  of  foreign  studies  and  travel  on  American  scholars  and 

writers  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .156 

Currents  of  new  ideas  set  in  motion 157 

Irving  the  pioneer  in  American  fiction 157 

Cooper  wins  a  wide  audience  by  his  novels  .  .  .  -158 

His  characteristics  as  a  writer 158 

Poe's  characters  and  technique  in  his  stories  .  .  .  .  159 

Hawthorne's  romances 160 

Two  Years  Before  the  Mast  and  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  .  .161 

Bryant,  poet  and  journalist 161 

Poe's  philosophy  of  the  art  of  poetry  .  .  .  162 

Lowell's  most  characteristic  verse  .  .....  162 

Longfellow  and  Whittier .164 

The  poems  of  Emerson '  .  165 

Four  historical  writers  of  distinction  .  .  .  .  .165 

Bancroft  and  Prescott .165 

Motley  and  Parkman 166 

The  breakfast-table  philosophy  of  Holmes  and  the  essays  of 

Lowell 166 

Permanent  value  of  Emerson's  essays 168 


xviii  CONTENTS 

XV 

SLAVERY   AND    SECESSION 

PAGE 

Reasons  for  the  attitude  of  the  South  toward  slavery     .         .169 

Raising  of  slaves  an  important  industry 169 

Attempts  to  legalize  the  African  slave  trade   .         .         .         .170 

'Extent  of  the  domestic  trade  in  slaves 171 

Financial  interest  of  the  South  in  slavery        .         .         .         .171 
Importance  and  influence  of  the  institution     .         .         .         .172 

The  Missouri  Compromise 173 

Rise  of  the  abolitionists  under  Garrison  .         .         .         .173 

Southern  resentment  natural 174 

Attempts  of  the  South  to  extend  slavery  .         .         .175 

Clay's  Compromise  of  1850 175 

Northern  sympathizers  with  slavery 176 

The  Kansas-Nebraska  act  a  turning-point       .         .         .         .176 

Kansas  becomes  a  battle-ground 177 

Causes  of  the  change  in  northern  sentiment    .         .         .         .     177 

Origin  of  the  Republican  party .178 

Fremont  defeated  in  1856 178 

New  anti-slavery  leaders  appear     .         .         .         .         .         .178 

Crimes  against  life  and  property  in  Kansas     .  .180 

Assault  of  Brooks  upon  Sumner      ....  .     181 

Decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  Dred  Scott  case         .      181 
Object  and  results  of  John  Brown's  raid         ....     181 

Significance  of  the  Lincoln-Douglas  debates    .         .         .         .182 

The  slave  owners  desert  Douglas     .         .         .         .         .         .182 

Nomination  and  election  of  Lincoln 182 

Why  secession  was  inevitable  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 

South :82 

The  choice  between  slavery  and  the  Union     .         .         .         .183 
Jefferson  Davis  elected  President  of  the  Confederate  States 

of  America 184 

Some  compromise  still  looked  for 184 

Peace-at-any-price  leaders  in  the  North 185 

Lincoln  makes  the  preservation  of  the  Union  the  issue   .         .185 
Results  of  this  master-stroke  of  statesmanship        .  .     186 


CONTENTS  xix 
XVI 

CIVIL    WAR 

PAGE 

The  colossal  task  entrusted  to  Lincoln 187 

The  government  unprepared  for  war 187 

Buchanan  merely  marks  time 188 

At  first  Union  forces  out-generalled  and  out -fought         .         .188 

McClellan  as  a  commander 189 

Different  conditions  in  the  West 190 

Grant  at  Fort  Donelson  and  Shiloh 190 

Capture  of  New  Orleans  and  surrender  of  Yicksburg  divide 

the  South .  192 

The  Chattanooga  campaign    .         .                                             .  192 

Grant  made  commander-in-chief 192 

Menace  of  English  or  French  intervention       .         .         .         .  193 

English  sympathy  with  the  South  .         .  193 

The  Trent  affair       ...  193 

Effect  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation        .         .         .         .  194 

Charles  Francis  Adams  in  England                                               .  194 

Anglo-Confederate  commerce  destroyers                                      .  195 

Results  of  the  fight  between  the  Monitor  and  the  Merrimac  195 
Farragut  at  Mobile  Bay  .  .196 

Renomination  of  Lincoln  in  1864  .  196 
The  situation  critical  ....  .196 
McClellan  nominated  by  the  Democrats  .  .  .198 

Opportune  victories  for  the  Republicans  198 

Lincoln  re-elected .198 

Causes  of  the  collapse  of  the  Confederacy       .                           .  199 

Lee  surrenders  at  Appomattox  Court  House  .  iQ9 

English  intervention  a  costly  delusion     .                                     •  200 

The  South  exhausted  through  starvation                                    .  200 

Generals  who  distinguished  themselves    . 

Davis's  character  and  temperament 

Cost  of  the  war  to  the  North  and  the  South   .  203 

Relative  numbers  and  losses    . 

Forces  more  evenly  matched  than  is  generally  supposed  204 

Fruits  of  the  war     ..... 

Assassination  of  Lincoln 

His  character 

The  Gettysburg  address          .... 


xx  CONTENTS 

XVII   , 

RECONSTRUCTION   AND   CORRUPTION 

PAGE 

Demoralizing  effects  of  the  war 208 

Why  the  ballot  was  given  to  the  negro 209 

Ex-Confederates  believed  to  be  enemies  of  the  Union  .  .  210 
The  danger  a  real  one  to  the  men  of  that  day  .  .  .210 
The  "carpet-baggers"  and  "scalawags"  in  control  in  the 

South 212 

Restoration  of  white  leadership 213 

Tweed  and  the  Tammany  ring        .         ".         .         .         .         .213 

The  gas  ring  in  Philadelphia 214 

Grant  the  prey  of  unscrupulous  schemers     .         .         .         .216 

The  whiskey  ring  frauds 216 

General  Belknap  forced  to  resign  from  the  cabinet          .         .217 

Financial  panic  of  1873  and  its  causes 218 

The  Credit  Mobilier  scandal .219 

Elaine's  relations  with  railway  corporations  fatal  to  his  polit 
ical  ambition 220 

Creditable  acts  of  Grant's  administrations      ....     220 

The  award  of  the  Geneva  Tribunal 221 

Issues  in  the  Hayes-Tilden  campaign 221 

How  the  South  justifies  intimidation 222 


XVIII 

POLITICAL    AND    INDUSTRIAL    PROGRESS 

A  protective  tariff  an  issue  in  1860 223 

Industrial  interests  favor  a  high  tariff     .   ,      .         .         .         .224 
Democratic  support  for  a  high  tariff        .....     225 

Cleveland's  efforts  to  reduce  duties 225 

The  Wilson  bill  and  the  Mills  bill 226 

Republican  extravagance         .         .         .         .         .         .         .226 

Power  of  business  interests  in  regulating  the  tariff  .         .227 

The  Dingley  bill  and  the  Payne-Aldrich  bill  ....     227 

A  board  of  tariff  experts  created 228 

The  contest  for  sound  money  .         .         .         .         .         .228 

The  West  and  the  South  demand  more  money        .         .         .228 
Popularity  of  the  greenback 228 


CONTENTS  Xxi 


PAGE 


Legislation  in  favor  of  silver  .         .         .229 

The  Bland-Allison  bill    .  .         .     230 

International  bi-metallism 230 

The  Sherman  Silver  Purchase  bill 230 

Cleveland  buys  gold  to  protect  the  government's  reserve      .     231 

Other  causes  of  the  panic  of  1893 232 

Defeat  of  Bryan  and  free  silver  in  1896  .         .         .         .232 

Revival  of  business  in  McKinley's  administration  .         .         .232 
National  finances  placed  on  a  gold  basis  in  1900     .         .         .232 

End  of  the  agitation  for  free  silver 232 

The  panic  of  1907  and  its  causes 232 

The  need  of  a  new  monetary  system 233 

The  purchase  of  Alaska  and  its  results 233 

Venezuela  and  the  Monroe  Doctrine 234 

Cleveland's  attitude  in  this  affair    .  ....     234 

A  great  danger  happily  averted 235 

Operation  of  the  Pendleton  Civil  Service  law          .         .         .     236 
Dr.  Charles  W.  Eliot  on  the  need  of  further  reform        .         .     236 

President  Taft's  recommendations 236 

The  politicians  in  the  way  of  the  reform         ....     238 
Inventive  ingenuity  of  the  people    ....  .     238 

The  telephone  and  the  electric  light 238 

Influence  of  other  inventions 239 

Aeroplanes  and  dirigible  balloons 239 


XIX 

BUSINESS   EXPANSION   AND   IMPERIALISM 

The  conflict  between  industrial  combination  and  competition  240 

Purpose  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  law  240 

Rise  of  industrial  combinations  or  trusts  .  241 

The  Sherman  Anti-trust  bill  and  its  object      .  .  241 

Ineffective  suits  brought  under  it    .  242 

Effects  of  the  war  with  Spain  upon  the  business  imagination  243 

A  great  movement  toward  industrial  consolidation  .  243 

Technical  conditions  all  favorable  .  .  243 

Combinations  of  railway  systems    .  244 

Enormous  financial  resources  concentrated     .  .  245 

The  dangers  in  the  situation  .......  245 


xxii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Roosevelt's  work  in  averting  these  dangers      ....     245 
His  remedy  for  threatened  evils       .         .         .         .  v       .         .     246 

Suits  begun  against  two  great  trusts 246 

Denounced  for  "interfering  with  business"     ....     248 

The  Anti-trust  law  generally  accepted  as  salutary  .          .     248 

Causes  of  the  war  with  Spain  ......     248 

The  blowing  up  of  the  Maine  ......     249 

The  Spaniards  easily  conquered       .         .         .         .         .         .250 

Two  military  lessons  of  the  war      .         .         .         .         .         .250 

The  anti-imperialistic  agitation        ......     250 

The  United  States  becomes  a  world-power      .         .         .         .  '252 

Its  influence  in  Chinese  affairs         .         .         .         .         .         .252 

Annexation  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands        .         .         .         .         -253 

The  Panama  Canal -253 

The  United  States  gives  independence  to  Cuba       .         .         .254 
Fate  of  the  new  republic  still  in  the  balance    ....     256 

Roosevelt's  restless  energy 256 

His  work  in  checking  the  trusts  and  in  conserving  public  re 
sources     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .257 


XX 

LITERATURE,    FINE    ARTS,    AND    EDUCATION 

Intellectual  and  aesthetic  pursuits  not  altogether  neglected     .  258 
A  few  of  Mark  Twain's  books  noteworthy      .         .         .         .258 

Whitman's  place  still  in  doubt 258 

A  group  of  historians 259 

Works  in  scholarship  and  criticism 259 

Writers  of  novels  and  short  stories           .....  260 

Mr.  Howells's  literary  career 261 

Poetry  languishes 261 

American  painters  and  sculptors 262 

Interest  in  art  in  the  middle  and  far  West       ....  263 

Advances  in  architecture 263 

The  future  full  of  promise 264 

Merchant  princes  as  founders  of  museums  and  as  collectors  264 

Famous  private  collections 266 

Development  in  music .         .  267 

Stagnation  in  the  drama 267 


CONTENTS  xxiii 

PAGE 

Popular  and  advanced  education 267 

Mr.  Rockefeller's  and  Mr.  Carnegie's  benefactions          .         .     268 

Princely  gifts  from  other  sources 268 

The  public  school  system  of  the  country          .         .         .         .270 

Higher  education  for  men  and  women 270 

Reasons  for  the  tendency  toward  industrial  and  trade  schools     271 

Instruction  in  scientific  farming 271 

Athletic  sports  in  the  colleges 272 

Effects  of  the  increase  in  the  size  of  colleges  and  universities     273 
America's  contributions  to  civilization,  according  to  President 

Eliot         .  .273 

How  the  American  race-mind  has  expressed  itself    .        .         -273 


XXI 

SOURCES    OF    THE    NATION'S    WEALTH 

Statistics  of  the  growth  of  the  population        ....     275 

Total  wealth  of  the  nation 275 

Foreign  elements  in  the  population          .         .         .         .         .276 

Sources  of  foreign  immigration .276 

Destinations  of  immigrants     .         .  .         .         .         -277 

Percentages  of  foreign  element  in  different  states    .         .         .277 
Drawn  to  America  by  the  factory  system        .         .  .278 

Growth  of  manufacturing  interests  .  .278 

The  farms  of  the  country         .  279 

Not  keeping  pace  with  manufactures  or  population  280 

The  tendency  everywhere  from  the  field  to  the  factory  .         .     280 
More  consumers  than  producers,   proportionately,   of  food 
stuffs        .... 

The  remedies — more  and  better  farms     .         .  .     282 

Mineral  resources  of  the  country     .  283 

Production  of  iron  in  Germany,  Great  Britain,  and  the  United 

States 283 

Prosperity  comes  to  the  South  284 

Development  of  manufactures,  mining,  and  diversified  farming     284 
Value  of  the  coastwise  fishing  industry    .  286 

Character  and  value  of  exports        .  286 

Exports  of  manufactured  iron  and  steel 
Nine-tenths  of  American  exports  carried  in  foreign  vessels         .     287 


xxiv  CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Economic  problems  confronting  the  country  ....  287 

New  political  ideas          .         .         .         .....  288 

Relations  of  capital,  labor,  and  society  .....  289 

An  encouraging  outlook  .......  289 


291 


ILLUSTRATIONS,  FAC-SIMILES  AND  MAPS 


Santa  Maria,  Flagship  of  Columbus's  Fleet,  in  Duplicate    .        Frontispiece 

PAGE 

A  Viking  War- Vessel 2 

The  Fleet  of  Columbus 9 

A  Spanish  Galleon  of  the  Sixteenth  Century 15 

An  English  Ship  of  Elizabeth's  Time 17 

Fac-simile  of  the  Title-Page  of  the  American  Volume  of  Hakluyt's 

Voyages,  Enlarged  Edition  of  1598-1600       .....  19 

Ruins  of  the  Old  Church  on  the  Site  of  Jamestown,  Virginia       .         .  23 

The  Mayflower 25 

Champlain's  Picture  of  Quebec  in  1609       .         .  -37 

Drawing  of  Niagara  Falls  by  Hennepin,  an  Associate  of  La  Salle        .  39 

Franquelin's  Great  Map  of  1684                                                                -  41 

View  of  the  Town  of  New  York,  from  Brooklyn  Heights,  in  1679        .  49 

Fragment,  in  Reduced  Fac-simile,  of  the  Boston  News-Letter                .  55 

Fac-simile,  Reduced,  of  the  Title-Page  of  Poor  Richard's  Almanac  57 

The  Boston  Massacre 61 

St.  John's  Church,  Richmond,  Virginia        .                           ...  63 

Carpenter's  Hall,  Philadelphia  67 

A  View  of  Boston  in  1 768 71 

Fac-simile  of  Rough  Draft  of  Opening  Sentences  of  the  Declaration  of 

Independence       ......••••  73 

Old  Fort  Putnam— The  Key  to  the  Defenses  at  West  Point— Showing 

the  Magazines       .....•• 
Fac-similes  of  the  Signatures  of  the  American  Commissioners  to  the 

Treaty  of  Paris 

Whitney's  Cotton-Gin I01 

Section  of  Claik's  Map  of  His  Route  ....  .109 

XXV 


xxvi    ILLUSTRATIONS,  FAC-SIMILES  AND  MAPS 


PAGE 


The  Ckrmont  in  Duplicate  at  the  Hudson-Fulton  Celebration,  1909   .     113 
The  United  States  Frigate  Constitution 121 

Erie  Canal  and  Aqueduct  Over  the  Mohawk  River  at  Rexford  Flats, 

New  York 129 

Peter    Cooper's    Working    Model    for    a    Locomotive   Engine,    Tom 

Thumb          .         .         .         .         .         ,         .         ,         .         .         .131 

The  Town  of  Chicago  in  1831      ........     133 

Packet  Ship  Montezuma,  of  1,070  Tons,  of  the  Black  Ball  Line  .         .     143 
Clipper  Ship  Staghound,  of  1,535  Tons         ......     151 

Commencement  Day  at  Harvard  in  Holmes's  Time,  1825-1829  .         .     163 
View  from  the  Orchard  of  Emerson's  House  at  Concord      .         .         .167 

Mrs.  Stowe's  Home   in  Brunswick,  Maine,  in  which    Uncle   Tom's 

Cabin  was  Written        .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .179 

Part  of  the  Encampment  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac        .         .         .191 
Fac-simile  of  President  Lincoln's  Letter  to  Mrs.  Bixby,  of  Boston       .     197 

The  McLean  House  at  Appomattox  Court  House,  in  which  Lee  Sur 
rendered  to  Grant 201 

Review  of  the  Union  Armies  in  Washington,  May,  1864     .         .         .205 

Evidence  in  Ku  Klux  Klan  Cases  before  the  Congressional   Com 
mittee  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .211 

The  Tammany  Ring    ..........     215 

Thomas  A.  Edison   at  Work  in    His   Laboratory  in   Orange,  New 

Jersey 237 

United  States  Troops  Landing  at  Daiquire,  Cuba       .         .         .         .247 
Battle-Ship  Oregon  under  Way  in  New  York  Harbor  .         .         .       '.251 

Panama  Canal — Gatun  Upper  Locks,  East  Chamber,  Looking  South, 

December  16,  1910       .          ........     255 

The  Administration  Building  at  the  World's  Columbian  Exposition  at 

Chicago  in  1893 265 

The  Carnegie  Library  at  Pittsburgh 269 

Two  Views  of  a  Giant  Harvester,  as  Used  in  California       .         .         .281 

The  Price-Campbell  Cotton-Picking  Machine,  Which  Does  the  Work 

of  Fifty  Persons  .........     285 


CAUSES  AND  EFFECTS 
IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY 


DISCOVERERS 

How  happened  it  that  the  Northmen  were  the  discov 
erers  of  America?  In  the  last  quarter  of  the  ninth  cen 
tury  there  was  a  great  migration  from  Norway  of  petty 
princes  and  their  followers.  Having  lost  their  indepen 
dence  in  a  desperate  naval  battle  in  872,  thousands  of  them 
chose  to  abandon  Norway  rather  than  remain  as  vassals 
of  the  victorious  king,  Harold  Fairhair. 

These  men  were  of  a  hardy,  venturesome,  seafaring  race. 
They  were  called  Vikings,  not  because  they  were  kingly 
either  in  character  or  in  bearing,  but  because  they  fitted 
out  their  ships  in  the  viks,  which  was  the  Norwegian  name 
for  the  deep  bays  that  indent  the  coast  of  that  rugged  land. 
The  sea  had  no  terrors  for  them;  they  knew  it  in  all  its 
moods.  They  had  both  courage  and  skill,  and  sailed  these 
wild  northern  waters  without  fear.  One  of  their  smaller 
fighting  vessels  for  use  along  the  coast  was  unearthed  a 
few  years  ago  in  a  good  state  of  preservation,  and  is  now 
to  be  seen  at  Christiania. 

When  these  Vikings  left  their  homes  in  Norway  some  of 
them  sailed  away  to  France,  others  to  England,  Scotland 
or  Ireland,  and  more  yet  to  Iceland,  across  six  hundred 
miles  of  ocean  to  the  west,  where  they  established  a  colony. 
So  many  of  their  fellow-countrymen  followed  them  that 
before  many  years  Iceland  had  a  flourishing  population  of 

3 


!*  s  *€  *,*;•;  Vi«  DISCOVERERS 

fifty  thousand.  This  colony  of  Northmen  had  been  in 
existence  more  than  a  hundred  years  when  one  of  its  mem 
bers,  Eric  the  Red,  became  so  dangerous,  through  the 
murders  which  he  and  his  followers  committed,  that  he 
was  declared  an  outlaw.  The  sea  offered  the  easiest  and 
surest  means  of  escape  to  safety,  and  Eric  the  Red  sailed 
away. 

It  was  common  rumor  among  the  Vikings  of  that 
day  that  land  of  some  sort — an  island,  probably — lay  not 
far  to  the  westward,  and  Eric  the  Red  set  out  to  see  for 
himself  if  this  report  were  true.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  of 
which  Eric  the  Red  was  of  course  ignorant,  Greenland  at 
its  nearest  point  lay  only  half  as  far,  about  two  hundred 
and  fifty  miles,  to  the  northwest  as  Scotland  was  to  the 
southeast,  so  that  the  distance  for  a  Viking  ship  and  a 
Viking  crew  of  those  days  was  comparatively  short.  Voy 
ages  of  five  and  six  hundred  miles  were  common  occur 
rences  to  the  Northmen.  They  had  to  make  voyages  of 
this  length  in  order  to  find  markets  for  the  oil,  skins,  wool 
and  fish  in  which  they  traded. 

It  was  in  983  that  Eric  the  Red  set*  "sail  from  Iceland 
and,  after  a  short  voyage  to  the  westward,  landed  on  the 
coast  of  Greenland.  With  something  of  the  assurance  of 
a  modern  real-estate  promoter,  he  called  this  snow-and- 
ice-clad  country  Greenland  in  the  hope  and  belief  that  the 
name  would  be  alluring  to  settlers.  He  made  his  home  in 
the  new  land  and  spent  several  years  in  exploring  the 
south  and  west  coasts. 

At  the  end  of  the  century  Eric's  son  Leif ,  leaving  Norway 
as  a  missionary  in  the  service  of  King  Olaf  to  proclaim 
Christianity  in  Greenland,  was  carried  by  adverse  winds 


LANDS   THE   NORTHMEN  REACHED  5 

far  to  the  south  of  his  destination,  and  discovered  a  land 
thereafter  called  Vinland,  where  there  were  "self-sown 
wheat  [wild  rice]  fields  and  vines  growing."  Leif  made 
his  way  northward  to  the  Greenland  settlements  with  this 
news,  and  as  a  result  other  ships  voyaged  to  the  south, 
to  Labrador,  Newfoundland  and  even  Nova  Scotia,  the 
explorers  bringing  back  descriptions  of  the  strange  lands 
they  had  found  and  of  the  natives  whom  they  had  en 
countered.  Modern  scholarship  identifies  Labrador  as 
the  Helluland,  Newfoundland  as  the  Markland  and  Nova 
Scotia  as  the  Vinland  of  the  Icelandic  sagas  in  which  these 
voyages  are  described,  although  there  are  those  who  argue 
that  the  Northmen  came  further  south  than  Nova  Scotia. 
Greenland  remained  a  Norse  colony  for  four  centuries, 
but  the  Northmen  made  no  effort  of  which  there  is  any 
record  to  extend  their  colonies  to  the  south.  The  reason 
is  supposed  to  have  been  the  lack  of  weapons  with  which 
to  conquer  the  natives,  whom  they  first  encountered  in 
Nova  Scotia.  The  Spaniards  and  English  of  five  centuries 
later  were  better  armed. 

Great  achievements  are  never  the  result  of  sudden  in 
spiration;  they  are  more  often  accidental,  as  in  the  case 
of  Leif  Ericsson's  discovery  of  Vinland,  or  the  fruit  of  pa 
tient  investigation,  research,  reflection,  preparation.  Years, 
oftentimes  generations,  pass  before  the  vision  of  the  poet 
or  philosopher  is  shared  by  the  man  of  action  who  has 
energy  and  scientific  knowledge  sufficient  to  turn  the  dream 
into  deeds. 

It  was  so  with  Columbus.  Five  hundred  years  were  to 
pass  after  the  expedition  of  the  Northmen  to  Greenland 
and  to  Nova  Scotia  before  Columbus  was  to  set  out  from 


6  DISCOVERERS 

Spain  on  his  memorable  voyage.  But  during  fully  half  of 
that  long  period  the  way  was  slowly  but  surely  preparing 
for  him. 

The  sequence  of  events  during  this  period  is  noteworthy. 
In  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  two  venturesome 
Franciscan  friars,  returning  from  a  journey  to  the  Far 
East,  brought  to  Europe  the  first  news  that  an  open  ocean 
lay  to  the  east  of  Cathay,  as  China  was  called.  Toward 
the  end  of  the  same  century  Marco  Polo  and  his  brother 
returned  to  Venice  after  an  absence  of  twenty-four  years, 
with  marvellous  stories  of  the  wealth  and  splendor  of  the 
cities  of  Cathay,  India,  Cipango,  as  Japan  was  called  in 
those  days,  and  of  the  spice-growing  islands  off  their  coasts. 

This  wonderful  news  inflamed  the  imagination  and, 
aroused  the  cupidity  of  all  Europe.  The  brisk  and  highly 
profitable  overland  trade  which  the  merchants  of  Venice, 
Genoa  and  other  cities  thereupon  established  with  India 
and  China,  and  which  was  carried  on  for  years,  was  rudely 
interrupted,  however,  when,  in  1453,  Constantinople  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  Turks,  who  thereafter  barred  the  way 
to  Asia. 

It  became  necessary,  therefore,  to  find  a  new  route,  and 
the  necessity  produced  the  man — Prince  Henry  of  Portugal, 
a  famous  patron  of  learning  in  his  day,  who,  in  the  hope 
of  solving  this  problem,  gathered  around  him  and  trained 
a  school  of  navigators.  One  of  their  number  was  Christo 
pher  Columbus,  the  Genoese.  He  sailed  in  these  Portu 
guese  ships  down  the  coast  of  Africa  nearly  to  the  equator, 
and  earlier  he  had  voyaged,  perhaps  in  a  trading- vessel 
from  Bristol,  England,  to  Iceland  and  beyond — observing, 
studying,  dreaming. 


THE  PROBLEM  BEFORE  COLUMBUS      7 

When  the  Portuguese  navigators  under  Prince  Henry 
found  that  the  coast  of  Africa,  after  they  passed  the  Gulf 
of  Guinea,  trended  again  to  the  south,  they  began  to  fear 
that  no  passage  could  be  found  around  the  continent  to 
the  spice  islands  of  the  Indies.  It  was  this  situation  which 
led  Columbus  to  turn  his  eyes  to  the  west  in  search  of 
a  way  to  the  rich  but  inaccessible  East.  Believing  the 
equatorial  circumference  of  the  earth  to  be  considerably 
less  than  it  really  was,  and  assuming,  from  the  chart  or 
world-map  which  Toscanelli,  the  Venetian  astronomer  and 
geographer,  had  sent  to  him  and  from  other  calculations, 
that  the  eastern  coast  of  Asia  extended  nearly  to  what  was 
later  found  to  be  the  continent  of  North  America,  Colum 
bus  figured  the  distance  from  the  Canaries  to  Cipango 
(Japan)  to  be  not  much  more  than  two  thousand  five  hun 
dred  miles.  It  was  a  fortunate  error  in  calculation.  For 
if  he  had  known  that  the  actual  distance  was  nearly  twelve 
thousand  miles,  he  never,  in  his  ignorance  of  the  existence 
of  the  American  hemisphere,  would  have  had  the  courage 
to  undertake  the  journey.  Thus  to  Columbus's  imagina 
tion  Cipango — an  island,  Toscanelli  assured  him,  which 
" abounds  in  gold,  pearls  and  precious  stones,"  and  where 
"they  cover  the  temples  and  palaces  with  solid  gold" 
lay  across  what  was  in  reality  the  western  part  of  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico. 

The  time,  moreover,  was  ripe  for  Columbus's  great 
achievement.  For  in  1492  Spain  had  superseded  Portu 
gal  in  maritime  as  in  other  affairs,  and,  after  a  struggle 
which  had  continued  for  eight  hundred  years,  had  finally 
expelled  from  her  soil  the  last  of  the  Moorish  invaders. 
She  was  thus  free  to  devote  her  surplus  energy  to  explo- 


8  DISCOVERERS 

ration,  conquest  and  colonization.  For  the  next  eighty 
years  she  was  the  leader  in  this  great  work,  leaving  the. 
indelible  impress  of  her  language  and  her  civilization  on 
the  New  World. 

Between  1492  and  1503  Columbus,  the  pioneer  in  her 
behalf,  made  four  voyages  to  America.  He  died,  how 
ever,  in  May,  1506,  without  realizing  that  when,  on  an 
October  evening,  at  the  end  of  his  first  voyage  with  the 
Nina,  the  Pinta  and  the  Santa  Maria,  he  sighted  a  little 
island  in  what  are  now  the  Bahamas,  he  had  discovered  a 
new  hemisphere.  To  the  end  he  believed  that  the- islands 
which  he  had  explored  and  the  coasts  which  he  had  skirted 
were  parts  of  or  were  off  the  shores  of  China;  and,  believ 
ing  that  he  had  found  the  Indies,  he  called  the  natives 
Indians — a  name  ever  afterward  given  to  the  aborigines 
of  North  and  South  America.  At  first  he  thought  that 
Cuba,  and  later  Hayti,  was  the  famed  Cipango  of  Marco 
Polo,  and  on  his  last  voyage  he  searched  the  coast  of  the 
main-land  in  vain  for  a,  waterway  that  might  lead  him  to 
the  rich  but  elusive  Indies,  all  the  time  inquiring  for  and 
hoping  to  find  the  gold  and  precious  stones  and  valuable 
spices  which  Marco  Polo,  Toscanelli  and  his  own  lively 
imagination  had  told  him  he  should  find  at  the  end  of  his 
voyage.  The  direct  inspiration  for  his  last  voyage  was 
the  news  of  the  success  of  the  Portuguese  navigator,  Vasco 
da  Gama,  in  reaching  the  Indies  by  the  route  around  Africa, 
whence  he  returned  in  1499  laden  with  spices  and  other 
valuable  commodities.  But,  baffled  and  disappointed, 
Columbus  sailed  back  to  Spain,  broken  in  health,  fortune 
and  spirit. 

The  report  of  the  discovery  by  Columbus  of  what  was 


io  DISCOVERERS 

supposed  to  be  the  indescribably  rich  island  kingdom  of 
Cipango  was  nowhere  received  with  greater  interest  than 
in  Bristol,  in  those  days  the  principal  seaport  of  England. 
The  voyages  of  the  Cabots,  John  and  Sebastian,  father  and 
son,  from  Bristol  were  the  direct  outcome  of  this  interest. 
John  Cabot,  like  Columbus  a  Genoese  by  birth,  had  mas 
tered  the  art  of  navigation  in  Venice,  and  in  1490  had  been 
induced  by  professional  reasons  to  make  his  home  in  this 
great  English  maritime  centre. 

The  authentic  records  of  the  results  of  the  voyages  of 
the  Cabots  in  1497  and  1498  are  meagre  and  inconclu 
sive — not  inconclusive  as  to  the  fact  that  one  or  both  of 
them  reached  America,  but  as  to  the  exact  points  which 
they  touched  and  the  extent  of  their  explorations.  The 
latest  historical  scholarship  favors  Cape  Breton  Island  as 
the  landfall  of  John  Cabot's  voyage  in  1497,  while  Labrador 
and  Newfoundland  each  has  its  advocates.  Cabot  thought 
that  the  land  he  had  found  was  on  the  coast  of  China.  He 
brought  back,  however,  no  gold  or  silver,  no  precious  stones, 
no  rich  stuffs,  no  fragrant  spices,  and  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
Bristol  merchants,  as  likewise  the  interest  of  King  Henry 
VII,  in  the  enterprise  languished  and  died. 

The  Cabot  voyages  were  not  followed  up;  they  did 
not  promise  commercially  profitable  results.  Eighty  years 
later,  however,  when  comparative  quiet  had  followed  the 
turmoil  of  the  Reformation  and  when  the  power  of  Spain 
was  on  the  decline,  the  bold  spirits  of  Queen  Elizabeth's 
court  began  to  look  abroad  for  conquest  and  adventure. 
It  was  then  very  convenient  to  cite  the  discoveries  of  the 
Cabots  as  proof  of  England's  right  to  a  large  share  of  the 
choicest  portion  of  the  New  World. 


ORIGIN   OF   THE   NAME   AMERICA  n 

The  name  America  appeared  in  print  first  in  a  geographi 
cal  work  entitled  Cosmographie  Introductio,  by  two  pro 
fessors,  named  Waldseemuller  and  Ringmann,  of  the  col 
lege  at  Saint-Die,  France,  which  was  published  in  1507,  the 
year  after  the  death  of  Columbus.  Amerigo  Vespucci,  a 
Florentine  navigator,  had  made  a  voyage  in  1497,  in  the 
service  of  Portugal,  to  the  coast  of  South  America  "beyond 
the  equator."  Two  years  later  he  led  another  expedition 
to  Brazil,  Venezuela  and  other  points.  The  suggestion  was 
therefore  made  in  this  treatise  that  this  part  of  the  earth 
be  called  America. 

Vespucci  himself  had  no  hand  in  this  affair — probably 
no  knowledge  of  it.  Neither  he  nor  Columbus  nor  any  of 
their  contemporaries  imagined  for  a  moment  that  a  new 
continent  had  been  discovered.  Nothing  could  exceed 
the  density  of  the  geographical  darkness  in  which  these 
early  navigators  were  groping  or  the  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  the  scientific  men  who  were  trying  to  form  intelligible 
conclusions  from  the  masses  of  more  or  less  contradictory 
and  inaccurate  information  which  they  were  bringing  back 
to  Europe  from  their  voyages.  And  when  from  time  to 
time  a  ray  of  light  did  emerge  from  this  darkness,  it  lost 
nearly  all  of  its  value  in  the  great  shadow  of  China  and  the 
Indies  which  for  years  hung  over  and  clouded  the  minds 
of  sailor  and  scientist  alike.  So  slowly  did  geographical 
truth  come  to  light  in  those  days  that  it  was  not  until  a 
generation  later  that  the  first  map  appeared  indicating 
anything  like  the  true  outlines  of  the  two  continents  as  a 
distinct  and  separate  hemisphere.  This  was  Mercator's 
map  of  1541. 


II 

EXPLORERS    AND    CONQUERORS 

THE  exploration  and  conquest  of  the  New  World  which 
Columbus  had  discovered  took  place  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  In  this  work  Spain,  then  at  the  height  of 
her  power,  was  the  leader.  During  the  seventy  years 
following  the  death  of  Columbus  in  1506,  in  the  reigns 
of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  Charles  V  and  Philip  II,  great 
fleets  of  vessels  bearing  soldiers,  priests,  colonists  and 
adventurers  by  the  thousands  left  the  ports  of  Spain 
for  the  Spanish  main  and  returned  bearing  rich  freights 
of  gold,  silver  and  other  treasure  which  Mexico,  Central 
America  and  Peru  had  been  forced  to  yield  to  the  con 
quering  invader. 

Having  at  the  outset  secured  a  firm  foothold  at  various 
points  in  the  West  Indies  and  having  got  some  knowledge 
of  the  coast  from  Venezuela  to  Mexico,  the  Spaniards  began 
to  extend  their  sway  to  the  main-land.  Vasco  Nunez  de 
Balboa,  the  leader  of  one  of  the  smaller  of  these  colonizing 
expeditions,  was  the  first  European  to  see  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  In  1513,  from  a  mountain  peak  in  Darien,  he  gazed 
upon  the  waste  of  waters  to  the  west,  without  realizing 
in  the  least,  one  may  believe,  the  significance  of  what  he 
saw.  Seven  years  were  to  pass  before  a  Portuguese  navi 
gator  of  scientific  equipment  and  force  of  character,  Fer 
dinand  Magellan,  in  the  service  of  Spain,  was  to  find, 

12 


ENTERPRISE   OF   THE   SPANIARDS  13 

through  the  straits  which  still  bear  his  name,  a  waterway 
into  the  Pacific.  It  was  this  voyage  of  Magellan's,  con 
tinued  across  the  Pacific  and  around  the  world  and  com 
pleted  in  1522,  which  gave  European  scientists  their  first 
glimpse  of  the  true  relation  of  the  newly  discovered  lands 
to  Asia.  And  yet,  as  has  been  noted,  a  score  of  years  were 
to  pass  after  this  epoch-making  voyage  before  the  first  map, 
Mercator's,  was  to  be  published  defining  with  even  an 
approximation  to  its  true  outlines  the  hemisphere  of  North 
and  South  America.  As  late  as  1536,  moreover,  Francis  I 
of  France  thought  that  the  new  country  around  the  mouth 
of  the  St.  Lawrence,  which  Jacques  Cartier  had  explored, 
was  the  northeastern  end  of  China.  And  although  Sir 
Francis  Drake,  following  Magellan,  sailed  around  the 
world  in  1570-1580,  tarrying  a  month  on  the  coast  of  Cali 
fornia,  many,  many  years  were  to  pass  before  anything 
like  an  adequate  notion  was  to  prevail  as  to  the  extent  of 
the  continent  of  North  America. 

To  return,  however,  to  our  story,  the  conquest  of  Mexico 
and  Peru  by  Hernando  Cortes  and  Francisco  Pizarro,  re 
spectively,  between  1518  and  1533,  not  only  brought  great 
honor  to  the  Spanish  name,  but  enriched  enormously  the 
royal  treasury,  and  was  a  tremendous  stimulus  therefore 
to  further  exploration.  The  full  records  which  have  come 
down  to  us  of  three  of  these  expeditions,  those  of  Cabeza 
de  Vaca,  Hernando  de  Soto  and  Francisco  Vazquez  Coro- 
nado,  are  among  the  most  valuable  of  the  original  narra 
tives  of  early  American  history.  They  form  the  chief 
sources  of  our  information  as  to  the  manners  and  customs 
of  the  Indian  tribes  between  the  Carolinas  and  the  Gulf 
of  California  as  they  existed  in  the  early  part  of  the  six- 


14  EXPLORERS   AND   CONQUERORS 

teenth  century.  The  narrative  of  the  wanderings  during 
six  years  among  the  Indians  of  Texas  and  northern  Mexico 
of  Cabeza  de  Vaca  is  a  unique  chapter  in  the  book  of  early 
American  adventure. 

The  motive  of  De  Soto's  expedition  inland  and  across  the 
southern  states  to  Arkansas  and  the  Indian  Territory  was 
the  same  as  that  of  Coronado's  from  a  point  on  the  Pacific 
north  and  across  to  the  heart  of  the  continent  at  Kansas 
and  Nebraska— the  hope  of  finding  the  rich  cities  which 
rumor  through  Cabeza  de  Vaca  and  other  explorers  had 
placed  in  the  vast  and  unknown  " North."  The  expecta 
tion  of  the  Spaniards  was  that  they  might  find  another  race 
like  the  semi-civilized  Aztecs  and  another  city  as  full  of 
wealth  as  was  Montezuma's  capital.  They  both  failed  in 
their  quests.  De  Soto,  however,  won  everlasting  fame  by 
discovering  and  crossing  the  Mississippi,  and  Coronado, 
if  he  did  not  find  the  gold  and  other  treasure  of  which  he 
went  in  search,  brought  back  a  store  of  curious  informa 
tion  about  the  pueblos  of  Arizona  and  New  Mexico  and 
their  inhabitants,  the  wonders  of  the  canon  of  the  Colo 
rado  and  the  huge  herds  of  bison  which  covered  the  Great 
Plains. 

French  exploration  during  the  sixteenth  century  was  in 
termittent,  half-hearted,  futile.  Francis  I  had  only  a  lan 
guid  interest  in  over-sea  matters;  affairs  at  home,  especially 
those  growing  out  of  the  aggressive  hostility  of  the  Emperor 
Charles  V,  engrossed  his  attention.  Under  his  auspices, 
however,  a  Florentine  navigator,  Giovanni  da  Verrazzano, 
sailed  in  a  single  caravel,  in  1524,  from  the  Carolinas  to 
Newfoundland,  skirting  the  shores  of  New  Jersey,  Long 
Island  and  New  England,  anticipating  by  a  year  the  voy- 


A  SPANISH  GALLEON  OF  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY, 
Redrawn  from  an  old  print. 


16  EXPLORERS   AND   CONQUERORS 

age  which  Estevan  Gomez  made  in  the  service  of  the  Span 
ish  king  along  the  coast  from  Labrador  to  Florida  in  the 
search  for  a  passage  to  the  Indies. 

The  three  voyages  to  the  St.  Lawrence  which  Jacques 
Cartier  made  between  1534  and  1541  were  of  the  highest 
importance,  although  they  resulted  in  no  permanent  set 
tlement.  For  they  established  the  French  claim  to  this 
new  country,  which  the  Indians  called  Canada,  and  opened 
the  way  for  Champlain  sixty-three  years  later.  Although, 
as  has  already  been  noted,  Francis  I  was  under  the  impres 
sion  that  the  land  which  Cartier  had  discovered  formed  the 
northeastern  part  of  China,  the  returning  ships  brought 
back  none  of  the  riches  for  which  Cathay  was  famous, 
and  the  interest  of  the  French  king  in  the  enterprise 
waned  accordingly.  Thenceforward  the  French  called  this 
land  New  France,  as  the  Spaniards  called  Mexico  New 
Spain. 

By  1570  the  decline  in  the  activity  and  energy  of  Span 
ish  exploration  and  conquest  became  marked.  Philip  II, 
alarmed  at  the  progress  which  the  Protestant  Reformation 
was  making,  set  out  to  crush  this  new  heresy  by  fire  and 
sword,  as  his  ancestors  had  destroyed  Mohammedanism 
in  Spain.  The  bloody  ferocity  and  inhuman  cruelty  which 
were  to  be  Spain's  chief  instruments  in  this  holy  warfare 
were  foreshadowed  by  the  massacre,  in  1565,  of  the  French 
Huguenots,  a  motley  band  of  soldiers  of  fortune  and  ad 
venturers  who,  under  the  leadership  of  Jean  Ribaut  and 
Rene  de  Laudonniere,  had  secured  a  precarious  footing  on 
the  east  coast  of  Florida.  Pedro  Menendez  de  Aviles 
descended  upon  them  and,  in  the  joint  service  of  God  and 
of  Philip  II,  killed  them  like  sheep  by  the  hundreds,  as 


i8  EXPLORERS   AND   CONQUERORS 

heretics  and  as  invaders  of  soil  that  belonged  to  Spain. 
The  incident  was  significant  of  the  spirit  of  religious  bigotry 
with  which  the  Spaniards  of  the  age  of  Charles  V  and  of 
Philip  II  carried  on  their  work  of  exploration  in  the  New 
World,  when  the  murder  of  a  heretic,  as  every  Protestant 
was  regarded,  was  just  as  much  of  a  solemn  duty  laid  upon 
them  by  the  church  and  the  state  as  was  the  conversion 
of  a  savage  to  the  true  faith.  Save  for  this  holy  butchery 
Menendez  is  remembered  only  as  the  founder  in  the  same 
year,  1565,  of  St.  Augustine,  which  thus  became  the  oldest 
town  m  the  United  States  and  the  only  town  that  was  per 
manently  colonized  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

Such  was  the  power,  on  sea  and  land,  of  Spain  in  the  first 
half  of  this  century  that  Henry  VIII  of  England,  preoc 
cupied  with  the  Reformation,  was  content  to  allow  Charles 
V  and  Philip  II  to  have  free  rein  in  the  New  World  and  in 
the  waters  thereof.  Under  Elizabeth,  however,  a  bolder, 
less  complaisant  spirit  prevailed,  partly  due,  no  doubt,  to 
the  fact  that  Spain  was  engaged  in  subduing  the  revolt  in 
the  Netherlands.  Sir  John  Hawkins  and  Sir  Francis  Drake 
challenged  the  supremacy  of  the  Spaniard  on  the  sea, 
bringing  home  to  England  tales  of  many  a  gallant  fight  and 
of  much  rich  plunder  from  Spanish  ships  and  Spanish  col 
onies.  Charles  Kingsley 's  Westward  Ho !  gives  in  romance 
form  a  vivid  picture  of  these  stirring  times.  Hawkins,  half 
pirate  and  half  slave-trader,  had  brought  to  his  fellow- 
countrymen  in  1565  their  first  direct  knowledge  of  Florida, 
while  Drake's  voyage  around  the  world,  in  1577-1580,  had 
supplied  a  theme  for  endless  conjecture  and  eager  anticipa 
tion  to  every  seaport  in  England.  It  was  on  this  mem 
orable  voyage  that  Drake  sailed  up  the  coast  of  California 


THIRD  AND  LAST 

VOLVME  OF  THE  VOY 

AGES,  NAVIGATIONS,  TRAP. 

fiques,  and  Difcoueries  of  the  Sngltflj  Ration,  and  in 
,     fome  few  places,\\-herc  they  hauenot  been,of  Grangers,  per 
formed  within  and  before  the  time  of  thefc  hundred  yceres,to  all 

parts  of  the  Nenfeund  world  of«xf»WKv»,orthc  Weft  InAet,  tiom  73. 
degrees  of  Northerly  to  57.of  Southerly  latitude: 

As  namely  ro  EngrorJane/,  Meta  Incognita,  Eflotilancly 

Tierrade  Labrador  plwfemdtandfiip  Tlie  grand  lay,  the  gulfe  of  S.Lau* 
egnd  the  Riuer  ofC0»/t.-:&  re  Hochelags  and  &?gsr?jM^aIong  the  coafl  of  Aram- 
,10  the  fhorcs  an<3  tnsincs  yf  VfrgMiaand  F/»«W,-j,andon  the  Welt  or  backfidc  of  them 
both,  to  the  rich  and  p!e  ,  f:  •  t  -•.  ,  ^:e«'!es  dtWxetm  rBifc<yatCti>ola>7ignex,CicuH:t 
Quimratio  the  1  5  .proutr.ces  of  the  kingdom?  of  New  Mexico  ,to  the 
boctoitj   ifthc  gulfc  c-i  C<ii?f(K'H}&iiRd  vp  the 


rence 

ice 


And  likewife  to  all  the  y  its  bodb  im&ll  ?.nd  great  lying  before  the 
cape  of  floruUtTfabiy  oiA&xkojrA  Titmji/tittjiQ  the  coafts  and  Inlands 

of  Ne&eSpainflTi<frr*frfs?tf.lzad  Guiana,  vp  the  .flighty  Riuersof  Orentque, 

Dtfft^rte,  and  Martnmn^.n  eucry  pare  of  JKe  epattof  a»i/E(  ,.to  -he  Rincr  of  flat, 

dirough  theStrcights  of  MageUm  forward  andbackvard^mi  to  the  * 

South  of  sh«  laid  Strcighrs  asf»rrc  as  J7,dcgi:tv;i: 

Andfrom  thence  on  the  backfide  of  America,  along  the  coaftesjharbours, 

and  capes  otChil^P^ti,Ntcarag>M,NueiiitE^afui 

^&wo,9Hd  more  MouhcrJy  a*  fatre  as  4  j  .degrees: 


Together  withthe  tworcnowmed,and  profperous  voyages  of  Sir  FratcitDrtkf 

and  MTlnnMi  Can  {t(b  r<x;nd  about  d»  circumference  oHhe  whole  earth,  and 
diuersosher  voyages  intended  and  fct  forth  for  that  conrfe. 

CoBtflcdty  R  *  c  «  A  R  D  H  A  K  L  x'  Y  t  PreAektr,6*ifometimtt 

Cddeat  of  Chi-:it-Ch«rcii  ic  Oxford.. 


^  Imprinted  at  London  by  Cfeot 

NeT*l>eriefznd  Ro  BERT  B  A  RK  riu 


ANNO 


FAC-SIMILE   OF  THE   TITLE-PAGE   OF    THE    AMERICAN   VOLUME    OF 

HAKLUYT'S  "VOYAGES,"  ENLARGED  EDITION  OF  1598-1600. 

From  a  copy  of  the  original  edition  in  the  New  York  Public  Library. 


20  EXPLORERS   AND    CONQUERORS 

and  spent  a  month  in  refitting  his  ship  and  in  trading 
with  the  Indians,  lying  at  anchor  meanwhile  in  a  harbor 
which  Pacific  coast  scholars  are  agreed  was  what  is  now 
known  as  Drake's  Bay,  about  thirty  miles  north  of  San 
Francisco. 

More  than  half  of  Elizabeth's  reign  had  passed  before 
she  and  her  people  were  fully  aroused  to  the  over-sea  oppor 
tunities  for  colonization  and  commercial  expansion  which 
lay  between  the  Spanish  possessions  on  the  south  and  the 
French  on  the  north.  The  man  who  opened  the  eyes  of 
all  England  to  the  possibilities  which  beckoned  to  them 
from  the  great  and  unknown  West  was  Richard  Hakluyt, 
an  Oxford  scholar  whose  imagination  had  been  quickened 
by  the  stories  of  returned  sailors  and  whose  mind  had 
been  trained  by  his  studies  in  the  subject  of  map,  chart 
and  globe-making.  Hakluyt  set  to  work  with  diligence 
and  intelligence  to  bring  to  the  knowledge  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen  the  narratives  of  the  navigators  and  explorers 
of  all  nations.  He  published  his  first  collection  of  these 
narratives,  gathered  from  widely  different  sources,  some 
even  by  word  of  mouth,  and  translated  when  necessary 
into  English,  in  1582.  The  book  was  called  Divers  Voy 
ages  Touching  the  Discoverie  of  America.  The  first  edition 
of  his  great  work,  The  Principall  Navigations,  Voiages  and 
Discoveries  of  the  English  Nation,  appeared  in  1589. 

No  publication  could  have  been  more  timely.  For  in 
the  preceding  year  the  mighty  fleet  of  Spanish  warships 
called  the  Armada  had  been  destroyed  by  English  shot  and 
by  storms  which  strewed  the  coasts  of  Scotland  and  Ireland 
with  wreckage.  And  by  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish 
Armada  the  Protestant  religion  was  saved  to  England  and 


END   OF   SPANISH   RULE   ON  THE   SEA         21 

every  quarter  of  the  sea  was  opened  to  English  ships  with 
out  the  fear  of  Spanish  aggression.  For  nearly  a  hundred 
years  Spain  had  been  the  arrogant  mistress  of  the  seas. 
Now  her  rule  had  come  to  an  end. 


Ill 

COLONISTS 

THE  explorers  and  conquerors  having  shown  the  way  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  the  colonists  followed  them  in  the 
seventeenth.  The  two  main  streams  which  flowed  from 
England  to  the  shores  of  the  New  World  came  from  alto 
gether  different  sources  and  were  impelled  by  very  different 
motive  powers.  The  band  of  gentlemen  adventurers  and 
soldiers  of  fortune  who  settled  on  the  Jamestown  peninsula 
in  1607  were  in  search  of  gold  or  a  way  by  water  or  overland 
to  the  South  Sea,  as  the  Spaniards  called  the  Pacific.^  Al 
though  they  named  their  settlement  after  the  new  Stuart 
king,  the  Jamestown  colonists  brought  with  them  the  tra 
ditions  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  They  were  still  under  the 
magic  spell  woven  in  their  imaginations  by  the  wealth 
which  the  Spaniards  had  found  in  Mexico  and  in  Peru. 
But  toil,  privation,  hunger  and  disease  met  them  at  every 
turn  and  they  and  those  who  followed  them  died  by  hun 
dreds. 

With  the  development  of  tobacco  culture,  which  was 
begun  by  John  Rolfe  in  1612,  and  the  establishment  in  1619 
of  self-government  through  the  first  representative  assem 
bly  in  America,  the  fortunes  of  the  Virginia  colony  bright 
ened  greatly.  The  character,  moreover,  of  the  colonists 
sent  out  from  England  was  much  better  than  in  the  early 
years.  The  dream  of  gold  mines  vanished.  The  practical 
problem  of  tobacco  culture  on  a  large  scale  took  its  place. 


RUINS  OF  THE  OLD  CHURCH  ON  THE  SITE  OF  JAMESTOWN,  VIRGINIA. 

All  that  remains  of  the  first  English  settlement. 


24  COLONISTS 

Negro  slave  labor,  introduced  by  a  Dutch  vessel  in  1619, 
was  welcomed  as  supplementing  the  convict  labor  largely 
used  up  to  that  time  in  the  tobacco  fields.  These  incidents 
in  the  early  industrial  life  of  the  Jamestown  colony  had  a 
far-reaching  and  determining  influence  upon  the  entire 
civilization  of  Virginia  and  upon  that  of  Maryland  as  well, 
where  the  social  and  industrial  conditions  were  largely  the 
same. 

The  little  colony  of  Pilgrims  who  landed  at  Plymouth 
in  1620,  and  the  Puritans  who,  eight  years  later,  began  the 
great  migration  to  Massachusetts  Bay,  were  in  search  not 
of  gold  or  silver,  or  of  a  way  to  the  Indies,  but  of  new  lands 
and  fresh  opportunities,  with  religious  freedom.  They 
were  home-seekers,  not  treasure-hunters,  and  they  brought 
with  them  their  wives  and  children,  their  household  goods 
and  the  few  servants  whom  they  possessed.  The  Pilgrims 
or  Separatists,  as  they  were  called,  were  Puritans  who  a 
dozen  years  earlier  had  fled  from  England  and  had  gone  to 
Holland  in  order  to  escape  persecution  for  their  religious 
beliefs.  Finding  it  difficult  to  support  themselves  in  a  for 
eign  country  and  wishing  to  free  themselves  from  the  Dutch 
influence,  they  determined  to  find  new  homes  in  Virginia. 
The  first  company,  one  hundred  and  two  in  all,  sailed  in 
the  Mayflower.  Of  this  number,  however,  only  thirty-five 
have  thus  far  been  identified  as  having  come  from  the 
Leyden  company.  They  were  serious-minded,  self-reliant, 
God-fearing  men  and  women,  whose  long  exile  had  weaned 
them  from  the  mother-land,  for  which,  however,  they  still 
retained  a  deep  affection.  To  their  number  were  added 
others  who  joined  the  vessel  at  Southampton  or  at  Plym 
outh,  her  port  of  departure.  Chance  carried  the  May- 


From  the  model  in  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  Washington. 


26  COLONISTS 

flower  to  the  coast  of  Massachusetts,  instead  of  to  Virginia, 
where,  after  losing  many  of  their  number  and  suffering  great 
hardships,  those  surviving  succeeded  finally  in  founding 
the  Plymouth  colony  under  Governor  Bradford. 

The  Puritans,  who  to  the  number  of  fully  twenty  thou 
sand  poured  into  Boston  and  the  other  towns  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  Bay  colony  between  1628  and  1640,  are  not  to  be 
confused  with  the  Pilgrims  who  came  from  Holland  with 
somewhat  different  motives.  At  this  period  fully  ninety 
per  cent  of  the  people  of  England  were  Puritans.  They 
constituted,  speaking  broadly,  the  great  middle  class  of 
farmers,  artisans,  tradesmen  and  professional  men,  includ 
ing  many  clergymen.  They  remained  in  the  Church  of 
England,  trying  to  resist  its  drift  under  the  Stuart  kings 
toward  what  they  regarded  as  Popish  practices,  until  the 
persecutions  of  Archbishop  Laud  became  unendurable, 
when  they  fled  by  the  thousands  across  the  sea  to  make 
homes  for  themselves  where  they  could  have  peace  and 
religious  freedom. 

With  the  rise  in  power  of  Parliament  under  the  leader 
ship  of  Hampden  and  Pym,  the  flow  of  Puritan  immi 
gration  to  the  New  World  slackened,  and  finally  when 
Charles  I  was  beheaded  and  the  Commonwealth  was  es 
tablished  it  ceased.  The  very  conditions,  however,  which 
brought  the  Puritan  emigration  from  England  to  an  end 
started  another  and  even  a  larger  stream,  of  an  entirely 
different  character,  flowing  to  Virginia.  CPhis  was  made  up 
of  thousands  of  men  of  the  best  blood  in  royalist  circles  in 
England  who  sought  in  the  New  World  at  once  rest  after 
the  strife  of  civil  war  and  escape  from  the  rule  of  the  hated 
Commonwealth. 


CAVALIER   MIGRATION  TO  VIRGINIA          27 

This  Cavalier  class,  as  it  was  called,  became  the  aristoc 
racy  of  the  colony,  and  transferred  to  the  plantations  of  the 
tide-water  counties  of  Virginia  not  a  few  of  the  manners, 
customs  and  tastes  that  had  given  grace  and  distinction 
to  the  country  life  of  the  landed  gentry  under  the  first 
two  Stuarts.  The  families  of  Washington,  Lee,  Randolph, 
Pendleton,  Marshall,  Madison,  Monroe  and  other  men  who 
became  equally  well  known  belonged  to  this  class,  and  came 
to  Virginia  at  this  period.  The  migration  was  as  distinctive 
as  that  of  the  Puritans  to  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  largely 
accounts  for  the  increase  in  the  white  population  of  Vir 
ginia  from  fifteen  thousand  in  1649  to  thirty-eight  thousand 
in  1670. 

Meanwhile  other  portions  of  the  seaboard  were  being 
rapidly  settled.  Henry  Hudson,  in  the  interest  of  the 
Dutch  East  India  Company,  sailed  up  the  river  which  now 
bears  his  name  as  early  as  1609  in  the  Half  Moon,  but  it 
was  not  until  fourteen  years  later  that  the  commercial 
enterprise  of  the  Dutch  gave  them  a  firm  foothold  in  New 
Amsterdam.  They  possessed  more  of  a  genius  for  trade 
than  for  government.  While,  therefore,  the  towns  and  forts 
which  they  built  became  active  centres  in  the  trade  in  furs 
with  the  Indians,  political  affairs  in  New  Amsterdam  be 
came  more  and  more  hopelessly  involved,  as  humorously 
illustrated  in  Washington  Irving's  burlesque,  the  Knicker 
bocker  History  of  New  York.  The  distinctive  feature  of  the 
Dutch  occupation  of  New  Netherland  was  the  feudal-like 
system  of  land-tenure  under  the  "patroons, "  as  the  lords 
of  the  great  estates  along  the  Hudson  and  elsewhere  were 
called.  The  people  of  New  Amsterdam,  however,  did  not 
prosper  under  commercial  rule.  When  the  English  took 


28  COLONISTS 

possession  of  the  town  in  1664  the  population,  after  thirty 
years  of  Dutch  occupation,  was  only  fifteen  hundred.  The 
population  of  all  New  Netherland  was  not  more  than  seven 
thousand,,  while  by  that  time  New  England  contained  fully 
one  hundred  thousand  people. 

Maryland  was  distinguished  from  her  neighbors  among 
the  early  colonies  by  the  proprietary  government  under 
which  the  successive  Lords  Baltimore  ruled  the  colony  for 
sixty  years,  from  1632  until  1692;  not,  however,  without 
constant  effort  and  repeated  interruptions  due  to  disputes 
between  the  assembly  and  the  proprietor.  The  proprie 
tors,  although  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith,  welcomed  the 
Puritans  who  were  driven  out  of  Virginia  and  other  non 
conformists;  and  even  the  Quakers  were  allowed  to  make 
a  settlement.  The  colony,  in  fact,  became  an  asylum  for 
the  persecuted  of  various  sects.  Religious  liberty,  however, 
brought  with  it  religious  strife.  For  years  bitter  conflicts 
were  waged  between  the  different  sects,  first  one  and  then 
the  other  getting  the  upper  hand.  There  were  alternate 
periods,  therefore,  of  toleration  and  persecution,  which  left 
the  colony  in  a  state  of  uncertainty  and  of  unrest. 

The  Pennsylvania  colony,  like  that  of  Maryland,  began 
its  career  under  a  proprietary  government.  In  1682  Will 
iam  Penn  and  his  Quaker  colonists  founded  Philadelphia,  a 
spirit  of  broad  religious  toleration  prevailing.  The  growth 
of  the  colony  was  rapid,  although— perhaps  because — the 
mixture  of  races  in  it  was  marked,  and  also  because  it  was 
settled  late.  In  three  years  the  colony  numbered  seven 
thousand  inhabitants.  Nearly  one-half  of  these  people 
were  of  other  than  English  birth  or  English  stock — Dutch, 
Scotch-Irish,  French,  Finnish  and  Swedish.  Owing  to  the 


RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCES  29 

wise  and  beneficent  rule  of  the  proprietor  no  colony  out 
side  of  New  England  showed  such  vitality  and  capacity 
for  growth.  Relations  with  the  Indians  were  peaceful. 
Farms  became  productive,  and  commerce,  especially  with 
the  West  Indies,  increased  rapidly. 

The  Carolinas  went  through  a  long  period  of  turbulence 
and  disorder,  also  under  a  proprietary  form  of  government, 
alternately  inefficient  and  rapacious,  before  they  emerged 
into  peace  and  quiet.  The  population  of  the  Albemarle 
and  Clarendon  settlements  in  the  north  and  south  respec 
tively  was  mixed  and  discord  prevailed  for  years. 

Any  consideration  of  religious  matters  in  the  colonies 
must  take  into  account  the  different  periods  in  which  the 
colonies  were  settled  and  the  different  elements  of  which 
the  populations  were  composed.  Thus  the  Virginia  colony 
had  existed  for  twenty-one  years  and  numbered  nearly 
five  thousand  persons  when,  in  1628,  John  Endicott  brought 
to  Salem  the  first  shipload  of  Puritans.  The  persecution 
of  the  Puritans  in  England  did  not  become  acute  until  the 
reign  of  Charles  I.  Meanwhile  the  Virginia  colonists  had 
consistently  maintained  their  allegiance  to  the  Church  of 
England,  and  the  English  Puritans  who  joined  them  in 
the  following  years  were  content  to  accept  this  as  the  es 
tablished  form  of  faith  in  the  colony. 

The  antecedents  of  the  New  England  Puritans  and  their 
motives  in  coming  to  Massachusetts  Bay  were  such  as  to 
make  it  natural,  perhaps  inevitable,  that  the  form  of  local 
government  which  they  adopted  should  in  effect  centre  in 
the  church.  The  ministers,  many  of  them  graduates,  as 
was  John  Harvard,  of  that  nursery  of  Puritan  clergy 
men,  Emmanuel  College,  Cambridge,  were  the  leading 


30  COLONISTS 

men,  with  the  magistrates,  in  every  community.  Congre 
gationalism,  the  essence  of  which  is  the  independent, 
self-governing  character  of  each  church  organization,  in 
fellowship  with  other  bodies  of  the  same  denomination, 
became  the  State  Church,  so  to  speak,  and  only  church 
members  were  allowed  to  vote  in  civil  affairs  or  to  hold 
office.  As  the  cultivation  of  the  land  yielded  only  meagre 
returns  and  as  the  Indians  presented  a  constant  threat 
of  danger,  the  people  gathered  in  towns.  And  the  centre, 
social  and  political  as  well  as  religious,  of  each  town  was 
the  church. 

The  age,  moreover,  which  produced  Milton  and  Bunyan 
and  Cromwell  in  England  was  one  of  deep  and  intense 
religious  feeling,  in  which  breadth  of  view  and  a  spirit  of 
charity  found  little  chance  for  play.  Whatever  inconsist 
ency  one  may  find  between  the  ideal  of  religious  liberty 
and  the  intolerant  temper  of  the  time,  the  fact  remains 
that  in  the  two  colonies,  Massachusetts  and  Virginia,  where 
this  temper  found  the  most  violent  expression,  the  founda 
tions  of  great  commonwealths  were  laid  much  more  quickly 
and  much  more  securely  than  in  the  colonies  where  greater 
freedom  in  religious  matters  prevailed.  Massachusetts 
drove  Roger  Williams  and  Ann  Hutchinson  across  her 
borders,  and  even  hanged  several  Quakers  because  of  the 
dissension,  turmoil  and  even  danger  to  the  state  which  the 
presence  of  these  preachers  of  strange  and  unwelcome  doc 
trines  involved.  It  was  with  the  same  motive  that  Vir 
ginia  expelled  the  Congregational  ministers  who  came  there 
from  Boston,  drove  the  non-conformist  Puritans  by  the 
hundreds  into  Maryland  and  fined  ship-masters  who 
brought  Quakers  into  the  colony.  After  such  a  period  of 


RELIGIOUS   FREEDOM   AND   INTOLERANCE     31 

religious  strife  and  turbulence  as  they  had  gone  through  in 
England,  the  people  of  both  Massachusetts  and  Virginia 
desired  nothing  so  much  as  peace.  To  those  who  by  the 
preaching  of  strange  doctrines  became  fomenters  of  discord 
they  showed  the  door. 

The  Hartford  colony  where  the  middle  way  was  followed 
was  no  exception  to  this  rule.  The  settlers  were  families 
from  Cambridge,  Dorchester  and  other  near-by  towns  in 
the  Massachusetts  Bay  colony  who  held  rather  more  liberal 
views  in  religion  and  politics  than  their  neighbors  did,  and 
who  left  their  homes  in  1636  in  order  to  find  a  place  in  which 
they  would  be  free  to  carry  these  views  into  effect.  The 
New  Haven  colony,  however,  which  was  settled  two  years 
later,  followed  the  stricter  Massachusetts  rule  in  making 
church  membership  a  prerequisite  to  the  right  to  vote. 
Both  communities  flourished  for  years  in  peace  as  inde 
pendent  commonwealths,  and  were  free  from  much  of  the 
contention  and  strife  which  vexed  their  neighbors. 

The  conditions,  political,  religious  and  commercial,  were 
decidedly  different  when,  toward  the  end  of  the  cen 
tury,  in  1683,  William  Penn  founded  Philadelphia  with  his 
large  colony  of  Quakers.  His  Quaker  followers  themselves 
differed  greatly  from  the  disorderly  and  violent  fanatics 
whom  the  Massachusetts  magistrates  had  hanged  a  quarter 
of  a  century  earlier.  With  the  death,  moreover,  of  Arch 
bishop  Laud  and  the  waning  of  the  Stuart  power,  the  dan 
ger  of  the  interference  of  the  home  government  in  religious 
affairs,  which  was  ever  present  to  the  Puritans  of  Win- 
throp's  day,  had  disappeared.  The  executive  ability,  the 
untiring  industry  and  the  wise  and  benevolent  spirit  of 
their  great  leader  were  the  chief  elements,  however,  which, 


32  COLONISTS 

in  the  early  years  of  the  colony,  served  to  fuse  the  widely 
divergent  races  and  creeds  of  the  Pennsylvania  emigrants 
into  a  comparatively  peaceful  community,  to  which  agricult 
ure,  trade  and  commerce  brought  prosperity  and  in  which 
religious  doctrine  was  a  matter  of  secondary  importance. 

The  two  men  who  by  dealing  justly  and  keeping  faith 
with  the  Indians  exerted  the  greatest  influence  among  them 
were  Roger  Williams  and  William  Penn.  More  often, 
however,  the  relations  of  the  settlers  on  the  frontier  with 
the  Indians  were  marked  by  double  dealing  and  bad  faith, 
and  the  results  were  generally  bloody  massacres  and  pro 
longed  guerilla  warfare.  More  than  three  hundred  persons 
on  the  Virginia  plantations  were  murdered  in  an  Indian 
uprising  in  1622,  giving  the  colony  a  severe  check  in  its 
development.  Half  a  century  later  Bacon's  rebellion  grew 
out  of  the  inability  of  the  Virginia  colonists  to  secure  from 
the  royal  governor,  Sir  William  Berkeley,  adequate  protec 
tion  against  the  Indians  whom  ill-treatment  had  aroused 
to  retaliation.  The  colonists  had  other  grievances  also  to 
which  Berkeley's  aristocratic  sympathies  and  his  narrow 
ness  and  obstinacy,  united  to  a  despotic  temper,  made  him 
equally  deaf.  The  death  of  Nathaniel  Bacon  brought  the 
revolt  to  an  end  and  gave  the  vindictive  old  governor  an 
opportunity  to  revenge  himself  by  the  execution  of  no  fewer 
than  twenty-three  of  the  leading  spirits  of  the  rebellion. 

The  alliance  which  first  the  Dutch  of  New  Netherland 
and  later  the  English  of  New  York,  during  the  governorship 
of  Sir  Edmund  Andros,  made  with  the  Five  Nations,  was 
an  event  of  the  highest  importance.  This  powerful  Indian 
confederation,  made  up  of  the  Mohawks,  Onondagas. 
Senecas,  Oneidas  and  Cayugas,  all  of  Iroquois  stock,  occu- 


PROVISIONS   FOR   POPULAR   EDUCATION 


33 


pied  a  strategic  position  of  great  strength  in  central  New 
York  between  the  Hudson  and  the  Genesee  rivers.  Having 
been  liberally  supplied  with  guns  in  exchange  for  furs  by 
the  Dutch  traders,  these  tribes  of  Indians  were  a  compact 
and  formidable  power,  and  proved  to  be  a  mighty  bulwark 
against  the  incursions  of  the  French  and  their  Algonquin 
allies  from  the  north.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  efficient 
help  which  they  gave  the  English  colonies  in  the  wars  that 
followed,  the  French  might  easily  have  swarmed  down  the 
valley  of  the  Hudson,  with  what  ultimate  result  to  the  colo 
nies  thus  split  in  twain  it  is  impossible  to  say. 

The  value  of  education  was  early  recognized  in  New 
England.  Provision  was  made  for  public  schools  in  all  the 
towns  of  Massachusetts,  and  in  1636  the  colonial  legislature 
emphasized  its  interest  in  the  higher  education  of  its  citi 
zens  by  founding  a  college  in  New  Town,  as  Cambridge 
was  then  called.  Two  years  later  the  name  Harvard  was 
given  to  the  institution  in  memory  of  the  young  clergyman, 
John  Harvard,  who,  dying,  left  his  library  and  about  four 
hundred  pounds  sterling  to  the  college. 

In  Virginia,  where  the  people  were  scattered  on  the  great 
plantations  along  the  rivers  and  where  only  a  few  feeble 
towns  existed,  a  public-school  system  was  impossible.  In 
those  early  years  each  planter  gave  his  children  such  in 
struction  as  he  could.  Governor  Berkeley,  writing  in  1670, 
thanked  God  that  there  were  no  free  schools  or  printing- 
presses  in  the  colony,  and  thirteen  years  later  the  new 
governor,  Lord  Howard  of  Effingham,  was  directed  to  al 
low  no  printing-press  in  Virginia.  Education  and  printing- 
presses  were  looked  upon  in  the  mother  country  in  those 
days  as  breeders  of  sects,  heresies  and  treason. 


34  COLONISTS 

During  the  first  twenty-five  years  of  the  Dutch  occu 
pation  of  New  Netherland  there  were  only  a  few  private 
schools  in  the  chief  towns,  and  these  were  not  always  con 
ducted  by  men  who  were  either  competent  or  reputable. 
About  the  middle  of  the  century,  however-,  under  Governor 
Peter  Stuyvesant,  a  public  school  was  established  in  New 
Amsterdam,  and  not  long  after  a  Latin  school  was  founded 
also. 


IV 
NEW  FRANCE  IN  AMERICA 

WHILE  the  English  were  planting  colonies  along  the  coast 
of  America,  the  French  werjs  establishing  settlements,  forts 
and  trading-posts  in  the  valley  of  the  St.  Lawrence'  and  on 
the  shores  of  the  Great  Lakes,  exploring  the  very  heart 
of  the  continent  and  drifting  down  the  Mississippi  to  its 
mouth.  A  triple  motive  was  the  inspiration  for  this  under 
taking—religious  zeal  for  the  conversion  of  the  Indians 
to  the  Roman  Catholic  faith,  a  desire  to  monopolize  the 
rich  fur  trade  of  the  Great  Lakes,  and  the  necessity  of 
checking  or  neutralizing,  in  the  interest  of  France,  the 
rapid  growth  of  the  English  power  along  the  seaboard. 

The  leader  in  this  enterprise  was  Samuel  de  Champlain, 
a  heroic  and  romantic  figure  in  early  American  history  and 
a  man  of  remarkable  character.  With  the  temper  of  a 
Crusader  of  the  Middle  Ages,  he  looked  upon  France  as 
the  champion  of  Christianity  in  the  New  World,  and  this 
thought  formed  the  very  centre  of  the  elaborate  political 
scheme  which  he  developed  for  the  enlargement  of  French 
influence  and  authority.  It  was  the  policy  of  Champlain 
and  his  followers  to  win  first  the  confidence  and  then  the 
friendship  of  the  Algonquin  tribes  of  Indians  along  the  St. 
Lawrence  and  around  the  Great  Lakes,  to  share  in  their 
councils,  to  take  part  in  their  wars  with  their  savage  rivals 
—to  exercise,  in  a  word,  a  general  supervision  over  all  their 
affairs,  spiritual  and  temporal.  The  triple  alliance  of  sol- 

35 


36  NEW  FRANCE   IN  AMERICA 

dier,  priest  and  trader  was  used  effectively  in  the  accom 
plishment  of  this  work.  With  French  soldiers,  in  Park- 
man's  trenchant  phrase,  to  fight  their  battles,  French  priests 
to  baptize  them  and  French  traders  to  supply  their  increas 
ing  wants,  the  dependence  of  the  Indians  upon  their  new 
allies  would  be  complete. 

Champlain  brought  versatility  as  well  as  loftiness  of 
purpose  to  this  task.  Combining  energy  with  self-control, 
initiative  with  tact  and  address,  he  was  at  once  a  trained 
soldier,  a  skilled  sailor,  a  keen  observer  of  scientific  tem 
perament  and  an  accurate  and  vivacious  writer.  One  of 
his  voyages  carried  him  as  early  as  1605,  before  even  James 
town  was  settled,  along  the  deeply  indented  coast  of  Maine 
and  as  far  south  as  Cape  Cod;  and  so  painstaking  and 
accurate  were  his  descriptions  of  the  peculiarities  of  the 
shore  line  that  his  route  can  be  closely  followed  at  the 
present  day. 

The  founding  of  Quebec  by  Champlain  in  1609,  when  the 
English  colonists  at  Jamestown  were  struggling  against 
famine,  disease  and  death,  and  eleven  years  before  the 
Pilgrims  settled  at  Plymouth,  gave  the  French  a  base  of 
operations  for  their  inland  explorations.  In  the  same  year, 
on  the  shores  of  the  lake  that  bears  his  name,  the  armor 
and  arquebuses  of  Champlain  and  his  few  French  followers 
were  much  more  effective  than  the  arrows  of  their  Algon 
quin  allies  in  bringing  about  the  defeat  of  a  band  of  Mo 
hawks.  A  petty  affair  in  itself,  this  first  clash  on  the 
wooded  shores  of  Lake  Champlain  between  the  French 
and  the  Algonquins  on  the  one  hand  and  a  band  of  warriors 
of  the  principal  tribes  of  the  great  confederation  of  the  Five 
Nations  on  the  other,  had  far-reaching  consequences.  For 


CHAMPLAIN'S  PICTURE  OF  QUEBEC  IN  i6og. 

Showing  the  quarters  of  himself  and  his  men  on  the  brink  of  the  Saint  Lawrence. 
From  Champlam's  Voyages  (1613). 


38  NEW  FRANCE   IN  AMERICA 

the  result  was  to  intensify  the  hatred  of  the  Five  Nations 
for  the  French  and  their  Algonquin  allies  and  so  to  open 
the  way  for  the  alliance  between  them  and  the  Dutch  fur- 
traders  of  the  Hudson  and  Mohawk  valleys. 

Champlain  pushed  his  way  far  into  the  interior.  In 
1615  he  reached  that  great  arm  of  Lake  Huron,  Georgian 
Bay,  having  travelled  thither  by  way  of  the  Ottawa  River 
and  Lake  Nipissing,  and  finding  in  the  village  of  Huron 
Indians,  on  its  shores,  a  Recollet  priest. 

The  death  of  Champlain  in  1635,  at  Quebec,  after  he  had 
devoted  twenty-seven  of  the  best  years  of  his  life  to  the 
interests  of  the  colony,  caused  no  cessation  in  the  work  of 
exploring  and  occupying  new  fields.  In  1639  Jean  Nicollet 
succeeded  in  reaching  the  Wisconsin  River,  and  in  the 
following  years  the  Jesuits  founded  settlements  at  Sault 
Sainte  Marie  and  at  other  points  in  the  wilderness  on  and 
near  Lake  Superior. 

It  was  not,  however,  until  1669  that  a  man  of  indomitable 
will  and  of  exhaustless  energy,  Robert  de  la  Salle,  took  up 
in  earnest  the  work  which  Champlain  had  laid  down. 
Rumors  that  there  was  a  great  river  far  to  the  westward 
had  reached  the  French  through  the  Indians  and  mis 
sionaries,  and  La  Salle's  curiosity  was  aroused  to  learn  if 
this  waterway  led  to  China  or  to  the  "Vermilion  Sea," 
as  the  Gulf  of  California  was  called  in  those  days.  His 
first  expedition  to  solve  this  problem  carried  him  to  the 
Ohio  River  only.  Before  he  could  make  another  start  the 
priest  Marquette  and  the  fur-trader  Joliet  had  reached 
this  mysterious  river,  the  Mississippi,  and  had  floated 
south  on  its  broad  bosom  as  far  as  the  mouth  of  the  Ar 
kansas. 


40  NEW   FRANCE   IN  AMERICA 

La  Salle  thereupon  determined  to  follow  the  Mississippi 
to  its  mouth  and  thereby  to  establish  the  claim  of  Louis 
XIV  to  the  extensive  territory  drained  by  this  great  stream 
and  its  tributaries,  thus  arresting  the  advance  of  the  Span 
iards  from  the  south  and  of  the  English  from  the  east. 
Accordingly  in  1679,  with  the  help  of  Count  Frontenac 
and  after  many  delays  caused  by  the  jealousy  and  envy 
of  both  priest  and  trader,  he  set  sail  on  the  Niagara  River. 
The  journeys  which  he  made  back  and  forth  between  Lake 
Michigan  and  the  French  settlements,  through  a  wilderness 
filled  with  wellnigh  insurmountable  obstacles,  and  the  dis 
appointments  which  he  met  but  which  seemed  only  to 
give  a  keener  edge  to  his  resolution,  show  the  heroic  stuff 
of  which  the  man  was  made. 

Finally,  in  the  spring  of  1682,  after  herculean  efforts 
extending  over  three  years,  he  reached  the  Mississippi  by 
way  of  the  Chicago  and  Illinois  rivers,  and  followed  its 
course  to  its  mouth,  claiming  all  of  the  land  drained  by  this 
mighty  stream  and  naming  it  after  his  king  Louisiana. 
Returning  by  way  of  the  Mississippi  to  Canada  and  thence 
to  France  he  laid  this  vast  territory  at  the  feet  of  his 
sovereign.  If  his  scheme  for  colonizing  Louisiana  and  for 
establishing  a  chain  of  French  forts  and  trading-posts 
from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Great  Lakes  had  not  mis 
carried,  the  expansion  of  the  English  colonies  to  the  west 
ward  might  have  been  considerably  retarded. 

Toward  the  end  of  Champlain's  governorship,  when 
the  affairs  of  New  France  were  at  a  low  ebb,  the  French 
narrowly  missed  losing  control  of  their  new  possessions 
for  all  time.  From  1629  until  1632  Quebec  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  English,  a  squadron  under  the  command  of 


I 

•o 


P-l       <L> 
<     £ 

s  s 


CX  4= 

p 

PH    >> 


42  NEW   FRANCE   IN   AMERICA 

David  Kirk  and  his  two  brothers  having  captured  the  town, 
the  French  garrison  being  weak  in  numbers  and  in  a  half- 
starved  condition.  But  Charles  I,  in  return  for  a  large 
sum  of  money  of  which  he  was  in  need  and  which  he  could 
not  extort  from  his  Puritan  Parliament,  restored  the  town 
to  the  French;  and  through  this  act  of  the  Stuart  king  the 
English  colonies  in  America  were  subjected  later  to  the 
depredations  of  a  border  warfare  with  the  French  and 
Indians  which  lasted  fully  three-quarters  of  a  century. 

This  period  was  from  the  English  revolution,  in  1688, 
which  placed  William,  Prince  of  Orange,  and  Mary  on  the 
throne,  until  the  peace  of  Paris  at  the  end  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War,  in  1763.  During  this  period  England,  with 
the  aid  of  her  continental  allies,  Dutch  and  Germanic,  was 
engaged  in  the  stupendous  task  of  thwarting  the  ambition 
and  breaking  the  power  of  the  French  under  Louis  XIV 
and  Louis  XV.  The  fear,  while  the  Stuarts  reigned,  lest 
England  might  become  a  Roman  Catholic  dependency  of 
France  had  been  ever  present  in  the  Protestant  mind. 
With  the  fresh  courage,  however,  growing  out  of  the  pres 
ence  on  the  throne  of  a  Protestant  king,  England  under 
William  became  aggressive.  The  four  wars  that  she  waged 
against  France  in  the  next  three-quarters  of  a  century 
were  virtually  one  conflict  in  their  general  aim,  the  inter 
vals  of  peace  merely  enabling  the  combatants  to  gather 
new  strength  and  fresh  supplies  for  a  continuation  of  the 
struggle. 

In  the  American  colonies  the  border  warfare  during  this 
period  between  the  English  and  the  French,  with  such 
Indian  allies  as  either  side  could  control,  was  almost  con 
tinuous,  not  being  governed  by  the  official  limits  of  the 


POWER   OF   THE   FIVE   NATIONS  43 

corresponding  European  conflicts.  The  New  York  border 
suffered  the  most  in  the  first  war,  King  William's.  Mas 
sachusetts  was  occupied  in  defending  her  own  outlying 
settlements,  and  the  other  less-endangered  colonies  to  the 
south  were  more  or  less  deaf  to  the  appeals  of  New  York 
for  assistance.  During  the  entire  war,  which  lasted  from 
1688  until  the  peace  of  Ryswick  in  1697,  Virginia,  Mary 
land,  Connecticut  and  East  Jersey  contributed  together 
only  a  little  over  three  thousand  pounds  sterling  to  the 
common  defense  fund. 

The  Five  Nations  bore  the  brunt  of  the  fighting  and 
suffered  severely,  losing  about  twelve  hundred  warriors, 
nearly  half  the  number  of  their  fighting  men.  By  their 
fierceness  and  cunning  in  that  war,  however,  they  won  the 
respect  as  well  as  the  fear  of  the  French.  Thenceforth  it 
was  a  consistent  and  well-maintained  feature  of  the  policy 
of  the  governor  of  New  France,  Count  Frontenac,  and  his 
successors  to  make  friends  with  the  Five  Nations  and  to 
keep  them  as  far  as  possible  in  a  state  of  neutrality.  It 
became  an  equally  important  part  of  the  French  policy, 
moreover,  to  keep  the  Abenakis  and  other  New  England 
and  adjacent  tribes  in  constant  warfare  with  the  whites, 
lest,  by  the  alluring  temptations  which  the  New  England 
traders  were  in  a  position  to  hold  out  to  them,  they  might 
be  won  over  to  neutrality,  or  possibly  even  to  an  alliance. 

While,  therefore,  during  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  in  Queen  Anne's  War,  the  New  York  border  was 
comparatively  quiet,  the  remote  settlements  of  Massachu 
setts,  including  those  in  what  are  now  Maine  and  New 
Hampshire,  suffered  terribly  from  marauding  bands  of 
Indians  who  were  instigated  to  these  attacks  by  the  French. 


44  NEW   FRANCE   IN   AMERICA 

The  horrors  of  this  savage  warfare  reached  a  climax  at 
Deerfield,  in  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut,  in  1704,  with  the 
killing  of  sixty  persons  and  the  carrying  into  a  captivity 
almost  worse  than  death  itself  of  a  hundred  others.  From 
time  to  time  the  New  England  governors  took  the  aggres 
sive,  sending  expedition  after  expedition  at  heavy  cost  to 
attack  Montreal  or  Quebec,  or  one  of  the  fortified  harbors 
in  Nova  Scotia  or  in  Cape  Breton  Island.  For  one  reason 
or  another,  however,  all  of  these  expeditions  proved  abor 
tive,  save  that  commanded  by  Sir  William  Pepperell,  who, 
in  1745,  with  the  aid  of  an  English  fleet,  captured  the 
important  port  of  Louisburg  on  the  southeast  coast  of  Cape 
Breton  Island.  But  this  was  a  hollow  victory,  the  town 
and  fortress  being  restored  to  the  French  by  the  treaty 
of  Aix  la  Chapelle  three  years  later. 

The  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  had  been  passed 
before  the  full  significance  of  the  line  of  forts  which  the 
French  had  built  from  Quebec  to  the  Ohio  River  made  itself 
felt  in  the  mind  of  an  English  statesman  who  possessed 
at  once  sufficient  imagination  to  realize  the  danger  they 
presented  and  sufficient  wisdom  and  authority  to  meet 
it  effectively — William  Pitt,  the  elder,  afterward  the  Earl 
of  Chatham.  The  French  barred  the  way  to  the  natural 
expansion  westward  of  the  English  colonies.  The  defeat 
at  Fort  Necessity,  near  the  Monongahela  River,  in  July, 
1754,  of  the  Virginia  troops  under  the  young  colonel  of 
militia,  George  Washington,  who  in  this  affair  comes  upon 
the  historical  stage  for  the  first  time,  made  clear  the  deter 
mination  of  the  French  to  claim  as  their  own  and  to  defend 
the  valley  of  the  Ohio  and  its  tributaries  as  a  part  of  the 
territory  of  New  France.  And  the  crushing  defeat  of 


END  OF  THE  DREAM  OF  A  FRENCH  EMPIRE  45 

General  Braddock  a  year  later  when,  with  a  large  force  of 
British  regulars  and  colonial  militia,  he  attempted  to  reduce 
Fort  Duquesne,  at  the  junction  of  the  Monongahela  and 
Alleghany  rivers,  emphasized  in  a  manner  not  to  be  disre 
garded  the  necessity  of  a  larger  and  more  comprehensive 
plan  of  attack  upon  the  entire  French  line  of  fortifications, 
if  the  power  of  this  formidable  rival  in  America  was  to  be 
broken  once  for  all. 

The  Earl  of  Loudon  and  General  Abercrombie,  who  suc 
ceeded  Braddock  in  command  of  the  regular  and  colonial 
forces,  shared  Braddock's  inefficiency  and  were  equally 
unsuccessful.  It  was  not  until,  in  1757,  Pitt  became  the 
real  ruler  of  England  that  he  was  in  a  position  to  send  sol 
diers  of  first-rate  ability  to  America  in  order  to  carry  out 
his  far-reaching  plan  of  operations  against  the  French,  who 
under  the  aggressive  Montcalm  had  captured  the  British 
post  of  Oswego  and  Fort  William  Henry.  These  he  found 
in  Amherst,  Wolfe,  -Howe  and  Forbes,  soldiers  of  ability 
and  of  tenacity  of  purpose.  With  the  ample  resources 
supplied  by  Parliament  and  by  the  colonies  themselves, 
these  men  were  able  in  a  few  years,  despite  one  or  two  severe 
reverses  like  the  repulse  of  Abercrombie  at  Ticonderoga,  to 
break  the  French  line  of  communications  in  the  West  by 
the  capture  of  Fort  Niagara  and  Fort  Duquesne,  and  then 
to  complete  the  work  for  all  time  by  the  capture  of  Quebec 
and  Montreal.  When,  in  1759,  Quebec,  after  having  been 
heroically  defended  by  Montcalm,  who  lost  his  life  on  the 
Plains  of  Abraham,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  English  forces 
under  the  immortal  Wolfe,  and,  in  the  following  year,  Mon 
treal  was  forced  to  surrender  to  Amherst,  the  end  was 
reached  of  the  dream  of  a  great  French  empire  in  America. 


46  NEW  FRANCE   IN  AMERICA 

Thenceforth  the  English  colonies  were  freed  from  tin  over 
hanging  threat  of  French  aggression,  with  its  L 
accompaniment  of  Indian  barbarity  and  cruelty.  The  con 
spiracy  of  Pontiac,  in  1763,  represented  the  last  organized 
resistance,  desperate  but  short-lived,  of  the  Indians  west  of 
the  Alleghanies  against  the  permanent  occupation  of  that 
region  by  the  English  settlers. 


V 
GROWTH    OF    THE    COLONIES 

DOMESTIC  affairs  in  the  colonies  had  adjusted  them 
selves  meanwhile,  after  a  period  of  more  or  less  confusion, 
to  the  new  conditions  brought  about  by  the  revolution 
which,  in  1688,  had  placed  William,  Prince  of  Orange,  and 
Mary  on  the  throne  of  England.  In  Massachusetts  the 
episode  of  the  Salem  Village  witchcraft  delusion,  local  in 
its  influence  and  of  brief  duration,  occurred  in  1692  while 
these  changes  were  in  progress.  This  lamentable  affair, 
in  the  course  of  which  no  fewer  than  one  hundred  and 
twenty-six  persons  were  imprisoned  and  nineteen  hanged, 
was  a  curious  expression  of  the  belief  in  a  personal  influ 
ence  for  evil  which  is  one  of  the  most  tenacious  supersti 
tions  that  barbarism  has  handed  down  to  civilization.  This 
superstition  the  Puritans  brought  with  them  from  Eng 
land.  The  English  Parliament  had  passed  a  witch  act 
early  in  the  reign  of  James  I,  but  most  of  the  trials  and 
executions  which  took  place  under  this  act  occurred  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  I,  during  the  years  when  the  great  Puritan 
migration  from  England  to  Massachusetts  Bay  was  in 
progress.  The  first  execution  for  witchcraft  in  America 
was  in  1648,  under  Governor  Winthrop.  The  hysterical 
violence  of  the  Salem  Village  manifestations  grew  out  of  the 
veritable  panic  of  suspicion  and  fear  into  which  the  whole 
community  was  thrown  by  the  accusations.  As  soon  as 
a  few  of  the  cooler  heads  escaped  from  this  influence  and 

47 


48  GROWTH  OF  THE   COLONIES 

applied  the  test  of  ordinary  common-sense  to  the  mani 
festations,  the  superstition  received  its  death  blow.  Twenty 
years  later,  however,  in  England,  and  even  thirty  years 
later  in  Scotland,  there  were  executions  for  witchcraft,  so 
slowly  did  the  ancient  belief  in  a  malignant  personal  in 
fluence  give  way  to  the  modern  conception  of  the  operation 
of  natural  law. 

The  royal  governors  appointed  by  King  William  took  up 
their  tasks  in  a  somewhat  more  conciliatory  spirit  than 
their  predecessors  under  the  arbitrary  Stuarts  had  shown. 
The  three  centres  of  royal  authority  in  the  colonies  were 
Massachusetts  Bay,  New  York  and  Virginia,  although  for 
a  period  New  York  came  under  the  control  of  the  governor 
of  Massachusetts.  New  Hampshire  was  made  a  separate 
colony  for  the  purpose  of  weakening  the  influence  of  Massa 
chusetts.  Connecticut,  in  which  the  New  Haven  colony 
had  been  reluctantly  merged,  and  Rhode  Island  were  fortu 
nate  in  being  allowed  to  retain  their  old  charters  under 
which  they  were  self-governing.  They  had  some  difficul 
ties  to  settle  over  boundary  questions,  and  occasionally 
there  was  friction  with  the  royal  governor  of  an  adjacent 
province  over  the  control  of  the  militia.  But  they  escaped 
the  irritation  and  friction  caused  by  the  quarrels  of  the 
royal  governors  with  the  legislative  bodies  over  fixed 
salaries,  taxes,  expenditures  and  supplies.  By  refusing  to 
grant  fixed  yearly  salaries  the  legislatures  prevented  the 
royal  governors  from  acquiring  the  independence  for  which 
they  were  constantly  plotting.  For  the  colonists  realized 
that  they  would  be  tied  hand  and  foot  if  the  royal  gov 
ernors,  while  remaining  dependent  on  the  king,  should  be 
come  independent  of  the  colonial  legislatures.  They  had 


i^-i'1   ;       IJ 


in    (j 

El 

O    .2 

w  K 


3  ? 


°f 

>  Eo 

W   "§ 

15      oS 

o| 


O    ° 

H1 

W    £ 

£l 


50  GROWTH  OF  THE   COLONIES 

indeed  learned  well  the  lesson  of  the  long  struggle  between 
Parliament  and  royalty,  that  only  by  maintaining  firm 
control  of  the  matter  of  taxes  and  expenditures  could  any 
check  be  kept  upon  the  King's  governors  and  their  desire 
to  enlarge  their  personal  authority  and  the  royal  prerog 
ative. 

The  navigation  laws  which  the  English  authorities 
imposed  from  time  to  time  on  the  colonies  were  another 
source  of  more  or  less  annoyance.  Their  purpose  was  to 
secure  for  English  merchants  a  monopoly  in  the  handling 
of  the  various  products  of  the  colonies,  despite  the  desire 
of  the  colonists  to  sell  their  tobacco,  rice,  fish,  lumber  and 
skins  in  the  most  profitable  market.  These  laws  failed  of 
their  purpose  because  in  most  instances  they  were  evaded 
or  ignored,  and  because  for  years  no  attempt  was  made 
to  enforce  them  rigidly. 

Bitter  disputes  occurred  over  these  and  kindred  matters 
in  Massachusetts.  In  New  York,  where  the  legislature 
was  somewhat  less  tenacious  of  its  rights  and  less  stubborn 
in  maintaining  them,  the  quarrelling  was  less  frequent 
as  well  as  less  violent.  Virginia  was  comparatively  free 
from  vexation  from  this  cause.  Certain  fixed  revenues 
which  the  King  enjoyed  in  Virginia  were  sufficient  jto  meet 
the  ordinary  expenses  of  the  colonial  government.  The 
royal  governor  was  therefore  not  obliged  to  ask  for  grants 
except  in  extraordinary  cases.  Two  instances  in  which 
friction  arose  were  when  Spotswood,  soon  after  he  became 
governor  in  1710,  quarrelled  with  the  House  of  Burgesses 
because  that  body  would  not  appropriate  a  sum  of  money 
sufficient  to  enable  him  to  carry  out  his  plan  for  a  mili 
tary  organization,  and  when,  forty  years  later,  Dinwiddie 


IN  PENNSYLVANIA  AND   MARYLAND          51 

attempted  to  require  a  fee  to  be  paid  for  the  seal  that  was 
affixed  to  a  grant  of  land. 

The  comparative  quiet  of  the  early  years  of  Pcnn's 
proprietary  government  in  Pennsylvania  did  not  continue 
after  the  English  revolution.  Although  Penn  gave  the 
colony  a  new  charter  under  which  many  concessions  were 
made,  the  people  through  the  assembly  were  continually 
quarrelling  with  the  proprietary  governor  over  political 
and  financial  matters,  Penn  himself  remaining  in  London. 
It  was  not  until  the  Revolutionary  War  that  the  colony 
got  rid  finally  of  the  last  shred  of  the  proprietary  form  of 
government  under  which  Penn  and  his  descendants  had 
ruled  the  province  for  nearly  a  hundred  years.  Maryland 
emerged  from  the  turmoil  following  the  revolution  in 
England  with  a  royal  governor.  The  province  continued 
to  be  so  ruled  until,  in  1715,  the  fifth  Lord  Baltimore 
renounced  the  Roman  Catholic  faith  and  thereby  recov 
ered  control  of  the  colony  as  proprietor,  the  government 
remaining  proprietary  until  the  Revolutionary  War.  The 
feeling  in  the  middle  colonies  against  the  Roman  Catho 
lics  was  for  a  time  bitter,  and  laws  of  much  severity  were 
passed  concerning  them. 

The  growth  of  population  in  the  colonies  in  the  eigh 
teenth  century  was  prodigious.  At  the  time  of  the  revo 
lution  in  England,  1688,  there  were  about  two  hundred 
thousand  persons  of  European  birth  or  descent  in  the 
twelve  colonies.  In  the  succeeding  sixty  years  this  num 
ber  had  increased  sixfold — to  twelve  hundred  thousand; 
and  some  estimates  place  the  figures  even  higher.  At 
the  same  time  there  were  no  fewer  than  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  negro  slaves  scattered  through  the  colonies, 


52  GROWTH  OF  THE   COLONIES 

the  large  majority  being  in  the  southern  and  middle 
provinces. 

The  pursuits  of  the  people  were  diversified.  Shipbuild 
ing,  the  lumber  trade  and  the  fishing  industry  flourished  in 
New  England.  Albany  remained  the  centre  of  the  traffic 
in  furs,  and  the  town  of  New  York  early  became  an  impor 
tant  commercial  centre  and  grew  rapidly  in  influence.  To 
bacco  continued  to  be  the  great  staple  product  of  Virginia 
and  Maryland,  while  in  the  Carolinas  and  Georgia,  which 
had  been  colonized  under  a  charter  which  Oglethorpe,  from 
motives  of  the  highest  philanthropy,  had  secured  in  1732, 
there  developed  a  valuable  export  trade  with  Europe  and 
the  West  Indies  in  Indian  corn,  rice  and  indigo.  In  addi 
tion  to  the  English,  the  farming  class  in  the  northern  col 
onies  was  composed  of  the  Dutch  in  New  York,  scattered 
along  the  valleys  and  on  the  broad  estates  of  the  patroons; 
the  Scotch-Irish  and  the  Germans  in  central  and  eastern 
Pennsylvania  and  in  Delaware;  and  the  Swedes  and  Dutch, 
comparatively  few  in  number,  in  the  Jerseys. 

With  the  population  of  the  colonies  increasing  so  rapidly, 
through  natural  causes  and  by  fresh  immigration,  it  was 
inevitable  that  there  should  be  corresponding  changes  from 
decade  to  decade  in  the  social  and  religious,  as  well  as  in 
the  political,  life  of  the  people.  Thus  the  new  charter  for 
the  province  of  Massachusetts  Bay  which  Sir  William 
Phips  brought  to  Boston  as  royal  governor  in  1692  abol 
ished  the  religious  test  for  voters  and  substituted  for  it  a 
property  qualification.  This  change  of  itself  went  far  to 
undermine  the  elaborate  ecclesiastical  structure  which  Win- 
throp  and  his  Puritan  followers  in  the  Massachusetts  Bay 
colony  had  raised  for  the  protection  and  advancement  of 


r     ./7A/1J 

THE   REACTION   FROM   PURITANISM  53 

the  interests,  secular  as  well  as  religious,  of  the  colony. 
The  decline  in  influence  and  authority  of  the  New  England 
ministry  began  from  that  time.  Thenceforth  the  town- 
meeting  became  a  broader  and  more  accurate  register  of 
the  people's  will,  freely  expressed.  A  further  sign  of  the 
reaction  from  the  rigid  sway  of  Puritanism  appeared  in  the 
adoption  in  1 708  by  the  Saybrook  Synod  of  an  ecclesiasti 
cal  system,  approved  later  by  the  Connecticut  legislature, 
midway  between  simple  Congregationalism  and  Presbyte- 
rianism. 

With  the  substantial  lessening  of  the  authority  of  the 
ministry  there  naturally  followed  a  decrease  in  religious 
earnestness  and  a  corresponding  laxity  in  conduct.  The 
" Great  Revival,"  between  1734  and  1740,  of  which  Jona 
than  Edwards,  minister  of  the  Northampton  Church,  was 
the  leader,  and  which  was  continued  by  the  Oxford  scholar 
and  orator,  George  Whiteneld,  was  in  the  nature  of  a  pro 
test  against  the  reaction  from  the  severity  of  Puritan  rule, 
and  sought  to  bring  men  back  to  the  old  moral  standards. 
Despite  the  excesses  which  accompanied  it,  the  revival 
made  a  deep  impression,  especially  in  New  England  and 
in  those  parts  of  Virginia  and  New  Jersey  where  Presby 
terian  churches  had  been  established.  The  revival  in  Eng 
land  of  which  Wesley,  the  founder  of  Methodism,  was  the 
leader  and  in  which  Whiteneld  also  took  part,  was  a  corre 
sponding  reaction  from  the  corruption  and  laxity  which 
followed  the  decline  of  the  Puritan  influence. 

In  Virginia  political  power  as  well  as  social  prestige  came 
to  be  more  and  more  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  the 
leading  county  families  which  had  come  to  Virginia  during 
the  Cavalier  migration.  The  Church  of  England  retained 


54  GROWTH   OF   THE   COLONIES 

its  preponderating  influence,  although  the  character  of  the 
clergy  was  not  of  the  highest.  The  Scotch-Irish  immigrants 
who  settled  in  the  Valley  of  Virginia  brought  with  them 
their  Presbyterian  faith,  and  by  the  middle  of  the  eigh 
teenth  century  they  had  established  their  right  to  worship, 
thus  breaking  down  the  barrier  which  the  Church  of  Eng 
land  had  kept  standing  against  non-conformists  since  the 
days  of  the  Jamestown  colony. 

Popular  education  had  made  some  advances,  meanwhile, 
outside  of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  where  the  Puri 
tans  early  established  their  public  schools.  There  was  a 
school  at  Newport,  but  there  was  no  public  provision  for 
education  in  the  Providence  Plantations.  After  the  English 
occupation  of  New  Netherland,  interest  in  public  schools 
languished,  and  many  of  those  which  the  Dutch  had  or 
ganized  and  maintained  were  given  up.  In  the  Jerseys, 
however,  schools  followed  the  Presbyterians  and  Congre- 
gationalists  who  came  thither  from  New  England.  In 
Pennsylvania  the  Scotch-Irish  maintained  schools. 

The  planters  of  the  tobacco  and  rice-growing  provinces 
to  the  south  continued,  however,  to  teach  their  children 
themselves,  or  to  provide  them  with  private  tutors.  This 
method  of  instruction  must  have  had  merit,  if  one  may 
estimate  its  value  in  developing  the  minds  of  the  youth  of 
the  colony  by  the  important  parts  which  the  gentlemen  of 
Virginia  played  in  public  life  later  in  the  century.  Politics 
in  the  large  and  better  sense,  however,  and  law  formed  the 
chief  school  in  which  the  young  men  of  family  in  the  prov 
ince  were  trained,  while  the  control  and  management  of 
the  great  estates  from  which  they  drew  their  incomes  gave 
them  both  assurance  and  self-command,  and  developed 


O 


C/3 


3*id2.»3jj.i3!-*J 

s_j  euw  5J»:3W»S  w'o  ° 


SJ 

o  o 


.2  a  so  «rs  o  ,S »« .s  c  o  ,°,  3 

8yK*tS§-*$J^58 


jifl 

o  **  t£ 


rv 
M  I 
**.  I 

N    | 

i 

>s'' 


•  'z  w>.2  s^,  i  ij.2;«=  «'°^t: 

g.53  8  c  G^7f~*  *  c  ..    - 
„»  «^  4**  >v?"^    V.2  T§ 


c«il^5j?i 


H  -  ~v»  a."-«     •-•S«'» 
]£  >•*  o  c  >r*  ^     «4f  .>  *•*  JK 

u  a*     §  ~*  c  S 

IMSSSfe* 


g.s^.fiS'S 

It^wfelS^'SsS 


«—  4i  -*•*    ^    '^i  •  ~      +**  «j    ~    %|  \L    C    V 

l|iW'?p8liiI!l5i 
•si*^s=g|.|sj|=5'f| 


i^  ^  JO    u 

"3  «5^"s  - 

«   SS"lj  ~"  ' 

"5  -S  *.»• 

~  U  >^£  " 

>s  s  "H  '"s.1* 

4Jw  «  s 

'*  °  §  §.! 

ill^ 

l«^ 

hlr.sj 


G    a 


56  GROWTH   OF   THE   COLONIES 

in  them  an  uncommon  talent  for  leadership.  Not  a  few 
of  the  planters,  however,  sent  their  sons  to  the  mother 
country  to  be  educated. 

As  the  population  in  the  various  centres  increased,  news 
papers  began  to  make  their  appearance.  The  Boston  News- 
Letter  began  publication  in  1704;  The  American  Mercury, 
in  Philadelphia  in  1719;  The  Weekly  Journal,  in  New  York 
in  1733,  and  The  Virginia  Gazette,  in  Williamsburg  in 
1736.  Philadelphia  early  became  an  intellectual  centre, 
largely  through  the  influence  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  whose 
Poor  Richard's  Almanac,  first  issued  in  1732  and  published 
annually  for  about  twenty-five  years,  reached  a  wide  popu 
lar  audience.  If  he  was  deficient  in  ideals,  Franklin  had 
what  is  perhaps  even  more  indispensable  in  a  new  and  grow 
ing  community — an  abundance  of  common-sense;  and  the 
scraps  of  worldly  wisdom  which  he  scattered  through  his 
Almanac  were  good  seed  sown  in  fruitful  soil  at  an  oppor 
tune  time. 

In  various  places, 'too,  and  at  long  intervals  foundations 
of  institutions  of  the  higher  learning  were  being  laid.  Fifty- 
seven  years  passed  after  Harvard  began  its  career  before 
the  College  of  William  and  Mary  was  chartered,  in  1693, 
in  Williamsburg,  Va.  Seven  years  later,  in  1701,  Yale  was 
chartered  as  a  collegiate  school,  not  finding  its  permanent 
home  in  New  Haven  or  its  name,  however,  until  1718. 
Princeton's  charter  as  the  College  of  New  Jersey  was  ac 
quired  in  1746,  and  was  one  of  the  fruits  of  the  "  Great 
Revival"  of  Jonathan  Edwards.  The  University  of  Penn 
sylvania  developed  from  an  academy  founded  by  Frank 
lin  in  1751.  A  public  library,  also  due  to  Franklin,  and 
a  hospital  were  further  evidences  cf  the  intellectual  ac- 


•f^or  'Ricb'ar^i:lJ^:'  • 

•  & 

A  N" 

k' 

A 

Irnanac 

X  JB» 

A  JL  JL  J.  ^C.  a  A  %^i.  \ 

Foi  the  Y^ar  of  Chrift. 

!•  7?"9    ^> 

-../  ;:;  J    J. 

1 

Bcinp" 

the  Firftafrer  JEAP  Y 

EAR: 

y/w^  in'qktj  ji^ff  th?  Creation 

Years 

Account  o^  rhe^£;ftf  m  Gwekt 

724* 

Latin  Church^  "%n«f)  O  cm    y 

.By  rhe 

Computation  of  •  //^  //^ 

Roman  Chronology 

'5142 
5^82 

4  At* 

J&w'ifo,  Rabbics...-: 

5494 

Wherein  u  conimmd 

;  The  Lunations,   EcJipfcs,;  Judgment  of 

he  V 

;r,  Spring  Tides    Plants  M 

or  ions  & 

mum. 

U  Afpcas,Sun  and  Moon's  RiHng 

.ting. 

Length  of  Days,  Time   of  Hiei 

:    Fans, 

Courrs    snd  bbfcrvable  Diav*  ^ 

Fitted  tothc  Latitude  oi  Forrv  De^iw: 

f-  and  a 

Meridian  of  Fiyr  Hours  Weft  rr0f 

f^itffrr' 

tyJUCH4&D  '•S4UNDBR89Vtii\<m.  \ 

Panted 

and  fold  by  B  FAJNKL/N*  at  ttte  New 

Pfiatidg  Office  tieat  the  Market 

fimiMiii»iiii. 

|^V€ 

£ 

.    Xl*  TbkdJmpidrioa 

•   .  .  '  ':;sl 

FAC-SIMILE,    REDUCED,    OF   THE  TITLE-PAGE 

OF  "POOR  RICHARD'S  ALMANAC." 


58  GROWTH   OF   THE   COLONIES 

tivity,  especially  in  the  sciences,  that  prevailed  in  Phila 
delphia.  Founded  as  King's  College  in  New  York  City, 
in  1754,  Columbia  acquired  its  present  name  in  1784.  In 
1804  Nicholas  Brown  gave  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  and 
his  name  to  Rhode  Island  College,  in  Providence,  which 
had  been  founded  111.1764.  Two  years  later,  in  1766,  a 
charter  was  granted  to  Queen's  College,  in  New  Brun 
swick,  N.  J.,  which  after  many  vicissitudes  took  the  name 
in  1825  of  Rutgers,  from  a  benefactor  of  the  institution, 
Henry  Rutgers.  Dartmouth  College,  which  acquired  its 
charter  and  its  home  in  Hanover,  N.  H.,  from  George  III 
in  1769,  and,  at  the  same  time,  its  name  from  its  patron, 
the  Earl  of  Dartmouth,  had  its  origin  in  a  school  organ 
ized  about  1750,  at  Lebanon,  Conn.,  by  the  Rev.  Eleazer 
Wheelock. 


VI 

RESISTANCE    TO    BRITISH    TYRANNY 

THE  curiosity  of  the  world  will  probably  never  be  alto 
gether  satisfied  as  to  the  reasons  why  George  III  and  his 
ministers,  in  the  decade  from  1765  to  1775,  treated  the 
American  colonies  with  an  arrogance,  short-sightedness  and 
folly  unparalleled  in  political  history.  A  few  things,  how 
ever,  deserve  to  be  borne  in  mind.  There  were,  in  the 
first  place,  no  precedents  to  guide  the  King  and  his  chief 
ministers,  Townshend  and  Lord  North,  in  the  business  of 
framing  laws  for  tens  of  thousands  of  Englishmen  in  remote 
.colonies.  The  situation  was  new,  unique.  The  counsel 
and  warnings  of  the  men  of  keen  insight  into  the  large 
political  principles  involved — Chatham,  Burke,  Barre  and 
others,  men  who,  while  believing  in  the  supremacy  of  Parlia 
ment,  regarded  the  course  of  the  King  and  his  ministers  as 
inexpedient  and  in  some  respects  as  unjust — were  ignored. 
To  the  King  and  his  successive  ministries  the  policy  of  tax 
ing  the  colonists  and  of  exercising  autocratic  control  over 
their  internal  affairs,  legislative,  judicial,  financial  and  what 
not,  seemed  the  only  one  consistent  with  the  dignity  and 
even  the  political  integrity  of  the  empire.  They  even  justi 
fied  to  themselves  the  use  of  British  troops  in  the  large  towns 
for  coercive  purposes,  their  only  answer  to  the  "Boston 
massacre, "  in  which  half  a  dozen  townsmen  were  shot  down 
by  the  soldiery,  being  a  law  providing  that  British  soldiers 
indicted  for  murder  should  thereafter  be  tried  in  England. 

59 


60  RESISTANCE   TO   BRITISH   TYRANNY 

George  III,  moreover,  had  weighty  personal  reasons  for 
opposing  stoutly  the  contention  of  the  American  colonists. 
The  very  principle  of  "no  taxation  without  representation, " 
upon  which  at  the  outset  the  colonists  took  their  stand, 
was  directly  at  variance  with  the  system  under  which  the 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons  were  chosen.  This 
system  gave  great  power  to  the  King  through  the  repre 
sentatives  of  the  "rotten  boroughs,"  containing  few,  or, 
in  some  instances,  no,  inhabitants,  while  at  the  same  time 
it  denied  any  representation  to  great  and  growing  cities 
like  Birmingham  and  Leeds.  To  admit  the  justice  of  the 
colonists'  position  would  have  been  to  invite  reform  in  the 
election  of  members  of  Parliament,  a  contingency  which 
George  III  could  not  contemplate  without  anxiety  and 
even  fear.  For  such  a  revolutionary  change  would  have 
made  Chatham  the  real  ruler  of  England  and  would  have 
reduced  the  King  to  a  subordinate  position,  shorn  of  a 
large  part  of  his  power. 

Finally,  neither  the  King  nor  any  one  of  his  ministers, 
save  Chatham,  seems  ever  to  have  comprehended  the  fact 
that  the  colonists  were  righting  for  a  great  political  principle, 
or  to  have  imagined  until  the  very  last  that  they  were  pre 
pared  to  sacrifice  their  lives  and  their  property  in  defense 
of  this  principle.  Even  the  plain  truths  which  Franklin 
uttered  in  the  memorable  examination  to  which  he  was 
subjected  by  the  House  of  Commons  with  reference  to  the 
effects  of  the  Stamp  Act  on  the  colonies,  failed  to  convince 
the  King  or  men  like  Townshend  that  principle  and  not 
expediency  was  the  controlling  motive  of  the  Americans.  It 
was  in  accordance  with  this  belief,  that  from  the  American 
point  of  view  the  matter  was  one  merely  of  shillings  and 


r{betAtxOTl!^%'Haick;piuurtU»«<»i<jft«  ofVr»cliaBS&B3m«lhcfe.  ^UrHa^nacrrtlefAKJm&aaies-lfend. 
gnreiing  o'er tinrZHrev:  pirP«triotj  c«j»u»Ttei  for  eadiwe fliccf,  KcenEjcwaaUMMon  tfcM  "flute  mtaib'd , 
uJ  OljovlihrUay.  U  slonoiaTijbutr  which  ra^alou  1)1* 3>e*i  ,  IShaH«aKhaJuDOt^t»ivrv«r  oaobsferi^ 


THE  BOSTON  MASSACRE. 
Reduced  from  Paul  Revere's  engraving. 


62  RESISTANCE   TO   BRITISH   TYRANNY 

pence,  and  in  order  as  well  to  help  the  British  East  India 
Company,  that  the  King  sought  to  beguile  the  colonists  into 
purchasing  tea  from  England,  by  making  the  price,  even 
with  the  import  duty  added,  lower  than  that  of  Dutch  tea. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  American  colonists  were  con 
tending  from  the  first  for  the  rights  which  England,  in 
the  political  enlightenment  of  later  times,  granted  unhesi 
tatingly  to  Canada,  to  Australia  and  to  South  Africa,  and 
the  possession  of  which  binds  these  British  colonies  to  the 
mother:  country  with  loyalty  and  affection.  The  Stamp 
Act,  which  could  not  be  enforced  and  was  consequently 
repealed,  was  designed  merely  to  produce  revenue.  The 
Townshend  acts,  however,  laying  duties  on  glass,  paper, 
tea  and  other  imports,  were  broader  in  scope  and  deeper 
in  design.  The  purpose  of  these  measures  was  to  concen 
trate  in  the  hands  of  the  King  the  absolute  control  of  the 
internal  affairs  of  the  colonies  through,  first,  the  power  of 
appointment  and  removal;  secondly,  the  payment,  from 
the  revenue  derived  from  the  duties,  of  fixed  salaries  to 
governors,  judges  and  other  officials;  and,  thirdly,  the 
maintenance  of  a  civil  and  a  pension  list.  Even  the  dull 
est  of  the  colonists  realized  that  to  accept  these  measures 
would  have  meant  political  enslavement.  The  aim  of 
Lord  North's  bills,  following  the  defiant  destruction  of  the 
tea  in  Boston  Haybor,  was  frankly  to  bring  the  rebellious 
Massachusetts  .colony  to  its  knees  by  the 'use  of  an  armed 
force  if  necessary,  and  to  "compel  it  to  acknowledge  the 
supreme  authority  of  Parliament  in  all  its  affairs. 

The  momentous  issue  thus  raised  was  met  by  the  men 
of  Massachusetts  with  unfaltering  courage.  The  King 
and  his  ministers  hoped  that  the  middle  colonies  would 


64  RESISTANCE   TO   BRITISH   TYRANNY 

remain  loyal,  and  there  was  some  ground  for  this  hope. 
For  New  Y^ork,  where  commercial  interests,  always  timid 
even  at  the  rumor  of  possible  international  danger,  were 
predominant,  and  where  the  population  was  of  mixed 
races,  had  broken  away  from  the  non-importation  agree 
ment  among  the  colonies,  and  her  legislature  had  refused 
to  approve  the  action  of  the  first  Continental  Congress  or 
to  appoint  delegates  to  the  second.  But  when  the  crisis 
became  acute  differences  on  minor  points  were  forgotten 
and  the  colony,  largely  through  the  influence  of  Philip 
Schuyler  and  the  Livingstons,  was  brought  into  line  with 
her  sister  provinces. 

In  all  of  these  controversies,  which  became  more  serious 
and  more  ominous  year  by  year,  Virginia  and  Massachu 
setts,  the  two  colonies  which  had  been  settled  exclusively 
by  people  of  the  English  race  and  the  original  stock  of 
which  had  remained  the  purest,  stood  side  by  side.  Vir 
ginia,  through  the  famous  Resolves  which  Patrick  Henry 
by  his  overwhelming  eloquence  forced  through  the  House 
of  Burgesses,  took  the  lead  in  the  resistance  to  the  Stamp 
Act.  And  when,  in  retaliation  for  the  destruction  of  the 
tea  in  1773,  the  port  of  Boston  was  closed  to  commerce, 
Virginia  and  nearly  all  the  other  colonies,  even  South  Caro 
lina,  made  the  cause  of  the  unfortunate  town  their  own, 
sending  not  only  sympathy  and  encouragement  but  sup 
plies  of  food  and  other  commodities  to  the  inhabitants  thus 
cut  off  by  sea,  and  therefore  in  those  days  entirely  isolated, 
from  the  rest  of  the  world.  . 

The  spirit  of  co-operation  which  was  so  large  a  factor 
in  bringing  and  holding  the  colonies  together  in  this  su 
premely  critical  juncture  had  been  created  and  fostered 


IDEA  OF  SEPARATION  AT  FIRST  UNWELCOME     65 

through  the  genius  for  political  management  of  Samuel 
Adams,  whose  local  committees  of  correspondence  welded 
the  towns  of  the  Massachusetts  colony  together  and  who 
applied  successfully  the  same  system  to  the  inter-relations 
of  the  several  colonies  themselves.  Thus  the  machinery 
was  conveniently  at  hand  for  the  calling  of  a  provincial 
congress  in  Concord  or  Cambridge,  when  the  legislature, 
in  pursuance  of  the  arbitrary  and  high-handed  British 
policy,  was  forbidden  to  meet,  as  well  as  for  the  assem 
bling  at  Philadelphia,  in  the  autumn  of  1774,  of  the  first 
Continental  Congress.  The  memorials,  however,  which 
that  Congress  adopted  fell  upon  deaf  ears.  The  King  and 
his  ministers  had  only  one  thought — to  force  the  people 
of  the  colony  of  Massachusetts  to  accept  the  political  yoke 
which  Parliament  sought  to  hang  on  their  necks;  and  in 
order  to  accomplish  this  end  the  force  of  British  troops 
at  Boston  was  increased  to  ten  thousand  men  under  Gen 
eral  Howe. 

Up  to  this  time  resistance  to  British  oppression  had  not 
been  generally  Associated  in  the  colonies  with  any  idea  of 
separation  fiorm  .the  mother  country.  To  most  minds  the 
notion  of  independence  was  unwelcome;  to  many,  incon 
ceivable.  As  a  whole  the  American  colonists  had  no 
desire  for  independence.  They  and  their  ancestors  for 
perhaps  four  generations  had  lived  in  peace  and  content 
ment,  as  a  rule,  under  the  English  flag.  They  were  proud 
of  this  relationship  and  the  depth  and  sincerity  of  their 
affection  found  spontaneous  expression  on  the  arrival  of 
the  news  of  the  repeal  by  Parliament  of  the  Stamp  Act. 

The  leaders  among  the  colonists  reflected  accurately 
this  sentiment.  Franklin,  impressed  doubtless  by  the  evi- 


66  RESISTANCE   TO   BRITISH   TYRANNY 

dence  on  every  hand  of  the  power  and  resources  of  Eng 
land,  looked  upon  independence  as  an  impossible  alterna 
tive.  Jefferson,  as  late  as  July,  1775,  when  the  Virginia 
colonel  of  militia,  George  Washington,  in  obedience  to 
the  call  of  Congress,  was  taking  command  of  the  American 
forces  at  Cambridge,  expressly  denied  that  the  object  of 
the  war  was  separation  and  the  establishment  of  an  inde 
pendent  government.  "Necessity  has  not  yet  driven  us 
to  that  desperate  measure,"  he  added.  Little  did  he  then 
think  that  in  less  than  a  year's  time  he  would  be  writing 
the  Declaration  of  Independence! 

Washington  himself  came  to  the  idea  of  independence 
reluctantly.  When  he  took  command  of  the  army  neither 
he  nor  the  rest  of  the  country,  with  the  exception  of  a 
few  individuals,  had  reached  the  point  of  considering  inde 
pendence  as  the  object  of  the  war.  It  soon  became  ap 
parent  to  him,  however,  as  it  did  to  other  patriots,  that 
the  alternatives  between  which  a  choice  must  be  made 
were  complete  subjugation,  political  as  well  as  military,  to 
Great  Britain,  or  independence.  To  a  man  of  Washing 
ton's  character,  in  which  great  strength  of  will  was  united 
to  a  passionate  love  of  freedom,  there  could  be  only  one 
way  out  of  such  a  dilemma — through  independence. 

There  was  one  man  in  the  colonies,  however,  who  was 
remarkably  equipped  for  the  task  -which  he  set  himself, 
and  who  began  as  early  as  1768  to  work  toward  the  ulti 
mate  end  of  independence — Samuel  Adams.  Prolonged 
reflection  upon  the  broad  political  principles  involved  had 
convinced  Adams,  far  in  advance  of  his  contemporaries, 
that  separation  from  England  was  the  only  possible  solu 
tion  of  the  difficult  problem.  From  that  time  he  worked, 


CARPENTERS'  HALL,  PHILADELPHIA. 

Meeting-place  of  the  First  Continental  Congress. 


68  RESISTANCE   TO   BRITISH   TYRANNY 

quietly  when  necessary,  but  unceasingly,  in  a  great  vari 
ety  of  devious  but  effective  ways,  to  influence  and  shape 
public  opinion.  Whenever,  as  occasionally  happened,  in  the 
years  following,  the  fires  of  resistance  to  British  oppres 
sion  burned  low  and  threatened,  through  indifference  or 
self-interest,  to  die  out  altogether,  this  far-seeing,  deep- 
plotting  Boston  patriot  heaped  fresh  fuel  upon  the  flames 
and  carefully  tended  them,  until  such  time  as  some  new 
display  of  despotic  power  and  stupidity  on  the  part  of  the 
King  and  his  advisers  served  to  relieve  him  of  his  self- 
appointed  task. 


VII 
INDEPENDENCE    BY   REVOLUTION 

THE  military  situation  in  the  spring  of  1776  was  serious. 
The  British  regulars  having  in  the  previous  year  tested 
the  temper  and  the  marksmanship  of  the  Americans  at 
Bunker  Hill,  on  the  slopes  of  which  more  than  a  thousand 
of  their  number  had  been  killed  or  wounded,  were  in  no 
mood  to  face  the  breastworks  which  Washington  threw 
up  on  Dorchester  Heights,  and  were  consequently  forced, 
in  March,  to  evacuate  the  town  of  Boston,  sailing  away  to 
Halifax. 

The  military  operations  around  New  York,  which  fol 
lowed  the  transfer  soon  after  of  the  American  army  to  that 
point,  were  decidedly  in  favor  of  the  British.  Washington 
showed  his  resourcefulness  as  a  commander  in  defeat  by 
the  skill  with  which  he  extricated  his  force  of  eight  thou 
sand  men  from  the  dangerous  predicament  in  which  they 
were  left  by  the  disastrous  battle  of  Long  Island.  He 
was  materially  aided  in  this  operation  by  the  dilatoriness 
of  his  opponent,  General  Howe,  who,  as  General  Francis 
V.  Greene  observes  in  his  Revolutionary  War,  never  re 
covered  from  the  mental  paralysis  which  he  received  at 
Bunker  Hill;  and  he  was  favered  Tcho  by  adverse  winds 
which  prevented  the  British  fleet  from  proceeding  up  the 
East  River  and  cutting  off  his  retreat. 

Other  misfortunes  followed— the  battle  of  Kip's  Bay 
and  the  capture  by  the  British  of  Fort  Washington,  with 

69 


70  INDEPENDENCE  BY  REVOLUTION 

more  than  two  thousand  men,  so  that  December  found  the 
American  commander-in-chief  with  the  remnants  of  his 
army,  about  three  thousand  in  number,  retreating  rapidly 
through  New  Jersey  and  across  the  Delaware,  Lord  Corn- 
wallis  pursuing  him  with  vigor.  The  withdrawal  in  fancied 
security  of  most  of  the  British  forces  to  New  York  gave 
Washington  his  opportunity,  a  little  later,  for  his  brill 
iant  dash  to  Trenton,  where  he  captured  a  thousand  men, 
mostly  Hessians.  By  military  strategy  of  the  highest 
order  he  held  at  the  Assanpink  River  the  main  British 
force,  hastily  dispatched  from  New  York  under  Cornwallis 
in  order  to  retrieve  the  disaster  of  Trenton,  while  by  a 
forced  night  march  over  a  roundabout  route  he  fell  upon 
the  three  regiments  which  had  been  left  at  Princeton  and 
routed  them  completely,  the  killed,  wounded  and  captured 
of  the  enemy  numbering  fully  five  hundred. 

These  two  exploits,  at  Trenton  and  Princeton,  which  in 
their  conception  and  execution  have  always  aroused  the 
admiration  of  military  experts,  came  at  a  time  when  the 
outlook  for  the  colonists  was  blackest.  They  served  imme 
diately  to  bring  Washington  into  high  distinction,  not  only 
as  a  soldier  but  as  a  statesman  who  was  ready  to  assume 
every  risk  in  order  to  turn  the  tide  of  war  in  favor  of  the 
American  cause  and  wrho  realized  that  an  immediate  victory 
of  positive  value  was  necessary  for  its  effect  upon  public 
sentiment  throughout  the  colonies  and  upon  the  spirits 
of  his  little  army.  The  popular  movement  for  indepen 
dence  had  been  greatly  accelerated  by  the  publication, 
early  in  1776,  of  Paine's  Common  Sense.  Much  of  the 
enthusiasm,  however,  with  which  the  adoption  at  Phila 
delphia  in  July  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  had 


72  INDEPENDENCE   BY   REVOLUTION 

been  received  had  died  out;  what  was  imperatively  needed 
was  a  substantial  military  victory.  It  is  not  too  much  to 
say,  therefore,  that  Trenton  and  Princeton,  coming  when 
they  did,  saved  the  Revolution. 

The  next  critical  period  of  the  war  was  the  series  of 
engagements  culminating  at  Saratoga  in  October,  1777, 
when  the  British  general,  Burgoyne,  hemmed  in  and  at 
tacked  on  all  sides  by  the  hastily  summoned  militia  of 
New  York  and  New  England,  with  the  few  Continental 
troops  that  Washington  could  spare,  all  under  General 
Gates,  surrendered  more  than  five  thousand  men.  The 
battle  was  critical  for  two  reasons:  first,  because  it  made 
impossible  any  further  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  British 
to  split  the  colonies  in  twain  by  an  expedition  from  Canada 
that  should  form  a  junction  with  Howe  or  Clinton  in  New 
York  City  and  thus  secure  control  of  the  Hudson  Valley; 
and,  secondly,  because  it  offered  convincing  proof  to  Europe 
of  the  ability  of  the  Americans  to  win  their  independence, 
and  so  led  directly  to  the  treaty  with  France  acknowledging 
that  independence  and  securing  fpr  the  colonies  through 
this  alliance  substantial  aid  in  men,  ships,  supplies  and 
even  money. 

Washington's  part  in  this  campaign  was  to  keep  Howe 
occupied  so  as  to  prevent  him  from  sending  reinforce 
ments  to  Burgoyne.  Thus  the  battle  of  the  Brandywine 
in  the  middle  of  September  and  the  battle  of  German- 
town  early  in  October,  both  of  which  Washington  lost 
to  Howe,  contributed  indirectly  to  the  American  victory 
at  Saratoga,  because  this  expedition  of  the  British  by 
water  for  the  capture  of  Philadelphia  diverted  to  this  pur 
pose  fully  eighteen  thousand  men,  a  portion  at  least  of 


74  INDEPENDENCE   BY   REVOLUTION 

whom  Howe  might  and  should  have  sent  north  to  the  aid 
of  Burgoyne.  Political  reasons,  moreover,  made  it  imper 
ative  that  Washington  should  not  allow  Howe  to  march 
into  Philadelphia  unopposed,  just  as  in  the  previous  year 
similar  reasons  had  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  oppose 
Howe's  attempt  to  occupy  New  York,  although  the  suc 
cessful  defense  of  the  city  against  a  greatly  superior  force 
supported  by  a  fleet  of  warships  must  have  seemed,  as 
it  turned  out  to  be,  hopeless.  The  winter  of  1777-1778 
passed  with  Howe  and  his  British  army  in  Philadelphia 
and  with  Washington  and  his  half-starved  Continentals 
at  Valley  Forge. 

The  ratification  by  Congress  early  in  May,  1778,  of  the 
treaties  of  commerce  and  alliance  with  France,  which 
Franklin,  Deane  and  Lee  had  negotiated,  and  the  news 
that  a  French  fleet  under  D'Estaing  was  on  the  way  to 
America,  made  it  imperative  for  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  who 
had  relieved  Howe  in  command  of  the  British  troops  in 
Philadelphia,  to  evacuate  that  city  and  to  concentrate  his 
forces  in  New  York.  Emerging  from  Valley  Forge,  with 
a  force  which  had  been  increased  during  the  spring  to 
about  ten  thousand  men,  Washington  overtook  Clinton 
and  engaged  him  at  Monmouth.  But  for  the  treachery 
of  the  English  soldier  of  fortune,  Charles  Lee,  to  whom 
Washington  gave  the  command  of  the  advance  column,  a 
decisive  victory  for  the  Americans  would  without  doubt 
have  been  won.  As  it  was,  Washington  himself  came  up 
in  season  to  turn  a  disgraceful  retreat  into  a  drawn  battle. 
Clinton  made  his  way  to  New  York,  with  the  loss  in  casu 
alties  and  desertions  of  between  fifteen  hundred  and  two 
thousand  men  since  leaving  Philadelphia.  Washington 


WASHINGTON'S   STRATEGIC  PRINCIPLES        75 

established  himself  with  his  army  near  by,  observing  and 
waiting. 

Up  to  this  point  Washington  had  been  guided  in  his 
conduct  of  the  war  by  two  strategic  principles  of  the 
highest  importance.  His  first  aim  was  to  keep  his  army, 
whether  it  was  small  or  large,  in  the  field  and  to  avoid 
fighting  except  under  conditions  of  his  own  choosing.  Ex 
perience,  moreover,  had  taught  him  that  the  possession  of 
no  city  or  town,  neither  New  York  nor  Philadelphia  even, 
was  essential  to  the  cause  of  independence;  but  the  con 
tinued  existence  of  the  main  army  of  the  colonies,  he  rea 
soned,  was  all-essential  to  the  final  attainment  of  this  end. 
Consequently  he  never  tried  to  recapture  New  York,  and 
refused  to  fight  Clinton  before  Philadelphia,  except  on 
his  own  terms.  His  second  strategic  principle  recognized 
the  valley  of  the  Hudson  as  the  key  to  the  military  control 
of  the  colonies  as  a  whole.  He  resolutely  refused,  there 
fore,  until  the  time  came  for  the  final  stroke  that  was  to 
end  the  war  at  Yorktown,  to  be  lured  away  from  this 
pivotal  point.  He  declined  to  go  north  to  oppose  Bur- 
goyne  or  south  to  save  his  own  province  and  the  Carolinas 
from  being  devastated.  He  was  never,  even  when  at 
Valley  Forge,  more  than  a  few  days'  march  from  the 
Hudson. 

By  this  policy  Washington  held  a  large  British  force 
inactive  in  New  York  or  in  Philadelphia,  his  line^of  com 
munication  with  the  New  England  colonies  was  always 
open  by  way  of  West  Point  and  he  prevented  the  division 
of  the  colonies  into  halves,  each  of  which  unsupported  by 
the  other  or  by  the  main  army  might  have  been  overrun 
and  conquered.  It  was  through  the  treason  of  Benedict 


76  INDEPENDENCE   BY  REVOLUTION 

Arnold  that  the  British  plotted  to  secure,  without  a  blow, 
the  fortress  of  West  Point  and  thus  to  wrest  from  Wash 
ington  the  control  of  the  river  and  the  valley.  Finally, 
in  the  successful  execution  of  the  broad  military  plan 
here  outlined,  Washington  was  materially  assisted  by  the 
temperamental  sluggishness  and  general  inefficiency  of  the 
commanders-in-chief  of  the  British  forces  successively  op 
posed  to  him,  Sir  William  Howe  and  Sir  Henry  Clinton. 

Monmouth  was  the  last  battle  to  be  fought  in  the  North ; 
thereafter  the  South  was  the  scene  of  the  final  military 
operations.  Two  events  of  the  year  1780  were  distinctly 
favorable  to  the  British,  the  capture  of  Lincoln  and  his 
army  in  the  town  of  Charleston,  and  the  defeat  of  Gates 
at  Camden.  Lincoln,  by  following  his  commander-in-chief 's 
first  strategic  principle,  might  have  saved  his  army  by 
retreating  into  the  country  and  by  allowing  the  British  to 
enjoy  the  empty  advantage  of  occupying  the  town  unop 
posed.  The  failure  of  Gates,  to  whom  after  Saratoga  a 
general  command  had  been  given  by  Congress,  carried 
with  it  a  fortunate  result.  For  Congress  tardily  but  wisely 
entrusted  to  Washington  the  selection  of  his  successor,  and 
the  appointment  of  General  Nathanael  Greene  to  this 
position  marked  the  turning-point  in  the  campaign  in  the 
South. 

Greene  had  the  energy  and  military  ability  which  his 
predecessor  lacked,  and  amply  justified  Washington's  judg 
ment  as  to  his  character  and  capacity.  Having,  early  in 
1781,  formed  a  junction  of  his  army  with  Morgan's  forces, 
after  the  defeat  by  the  latter  of  Tarleton  at  Cowpens,  he 
was  strong  enough  later  in  the  year  to  contribute  largely 
to  the  final  victory  at  Yorktown  by  forcing  Cornwallis 


78  INDEPENDENCE   BY  REVOLUTION 

into  Virginia  within  reach  of  Washington  and  by  occupy 
ing  the  attention  of  Lord  Rawdon  so  constantly  in  the 
Carolinas  that  he  was  prevented  from  detaching  any  of 
his  force  to  go  to  Cornwallis's  aid,  even  when  the  latter 
found  himself  hemmed  in  on  all  sides  at  York  town. 

Throughout  the  war,  up  to  this  time,  the  control  of  the 
sea  had  been  of  the  greatest  advantage  to  the  British 
because  of  the  facility  with  which  they  could  move  troops 
from  New  York  to  any  point  along  the  coast.  When,  in 
the  spring  of  1781,  the  information  reached  Washington 
that  a  French  fleet  under  De  Grasse  was  on  its  way  to 
America,  he  knew  that  this  advantage  was  about  to  be 
neutralized  and  that  the  day  was  near  at  hand  when,  if 
he  could  control  the  movements  of  De  Grasse,  the  final 
blow  would  have  to  be  struck  with  all  the  force  that  could 
be  assembled.  When  later  he  learned  that  the  objective 
point  of  De  Grasse  was  the  Chesapeake,  he  rapidly  made 
his  dispositions  to  overwhelm  Cornwallis,  who  had  been 
laying  waste  Virginia,  in  the  hope  of  ending  the  war  with  a 
single  stroke.  The  British  ministry,  pleased  with  the  work 
of  devastation  which  had  been  accomplished,  came,  at  this 
juncture,  to  the  aid  of  the  plan  which  Washington  was  for 
mulating  by  ordering  Cornwallis  to  remain  on  the  Ches 
apeake.  In  obedience  to  these  instructions  he  fortified 
York  town  as  best  he  could,  relying  on  the  co-operation 
of  the  British  fleet  from  New  York  for  his  defense.  When, 
however,  the  French  fleet  under  De  Grasse  entered  the 
Chesapeake  and  Washington  himself,  having  made  a 
forced  march  from  New  York,  attacked  his  front,  he  was 
in  a  vice  from  which  there  was  no  escape.  All  the  mili 
tary  authorities  are  agreed  that  from  a  strategic  point  of 


AMERICAN  PRIVATEERS  IN  THE   WAR         79 

view  the  Yorktown  campaign  was  boldly  and  brilliantly 
conceived,  and  that  the  execution  of  the  plan  was  masterly. 

The  surrender  took  place  on  October  17,  1781,  more  than 
seven  thousand  British  and  Hessians  laying  down  their 
arms.  There  was  no  alternative,  the  investing  force  being 
greatly  superior  in  numbers — about  nine  thousand  Ameri 
cans  and  seven  thousand  French,  together  with  the  fleet 
of  De  Barras  which  had  joined  that  of  De  Grasse.  But  for 
the  substantial  help  which  France  contributed  at  this  crisis 
to  the  cause  of  freedom  in  America,  making  the  decisive 
victory  at  Yorktown  possible,  the  war  might  have  dragged 
on  for  years.  As  it  was,  more  than  two  years  were  to  pass 
before  the  last  English  soldiers  remaining  in  America 
sailed  from  New  York,  the  treaty  of  peace  negotiated  with 
England  by  Adams,  Jay  and  Franklin  being  formally  signed 
in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year,  1783.  Following  the 
British  soldiers  went  the  loyalists,  to  the  number  of  fully 
twenty  thousand.  They  sailed  to  Canada,  Nova  Scotia, 
Bermuda  or  the  British  West  Indies  and  made  their  homes 
there. 

The  part  which  the  American  privateers  played  in  the 
Revolutionary  War  was  not  unimportant.  Between  1776 
and  1783  more  than  fifteen  hundred  armed  vessels,,  all  but 
a  small  proportion  of  which  were  of  private  ownership, 
were  fitted  out  in  American  ports  to  prey  on  British  com 
merce.  Of  this  number  New  England  contributed  more 
than  one-half.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  French  alliance  these 
American  cruisers,  public  and  private,  had  captured  more 
than  six  hundred  English  vessels,  many  of  them  rich  prizes. 
Meanwhile,  however,  British  cruisers  had  captured  half  as 
many  again  American  vessels,  practically  ruining  the  coast- 


8o  INDEPENDENCE   BY   REVOLUTION 

wise  and  fishing  trade  of  New  England.  The  odds,  there 
fore,  were  decidedly  in  favor  of  England,  notwithstanding 
the  loss  which  her  merchant  marine  suffered. 

The  one  great  naval  exploit  of  the  Revolution,  which 
has  a  unique  distinction  never  likely  to  be  duplicated,  was 
the  capture,  off  the  north  coast  of  England,  of  the  British 
frigate  Serapis  by  Paul  Jones  in  the  Bonhomme  Richard, 
the  Americans  being  forced  to  abandon  their  own  ship  as 
she  sank  under  them,  vitally  wounded,  and  to  take  refuge 
on  the  frigate  which  they  had  captured. 

Finally,  the  conduct  of  the  Revolutionary  War  empha 
sized  in  a  dramatic  manner  the  remarkable  combination 
of  qualities,  moral  and  intellectual,  personal  and  profes 
sional,  which  Washington,  fortunately  for  his  country, 
brought  to  the  herculean  task  which  had  been  laid  upon 
him.  The  obstacles  with  wrhich  he  had  to  contend  from 
the  outset  were  wellnigh  endless  in  number  and  appar 
ently  insurmountable  in  character— a  Congress  without 
power  or  authority  and  therefore  without  credit,  the  fee 
bleness  of  which  increased  as  the  really  able  men  in  its 
thin  ranks  departed  on  diplomatic  missions  or  returned 
to  take  charge  of  affairs  in  their  respective  colonies;  the 
supineness  and  indifference  of  the  colonial  governments 
to  his  repeated  appeals  for  men  and  supplies  when  these 
could  not  be  obtained  .from  Congress;  a  system  of  short- 
term  enlistments  which  was  almost  fatal  to  the  efficiency 
of  his  army  and  left  him  ignorant  of  what  his  force  was  to 
consist  of  almost  from  month  to  month;  dissension,  suffer 
ing  and  even  mutiny  in  the  ranks  of  his  unpaid,  ill-clothed, 
half-starved  army;  envy,  jealousy  and  even  conspiracy 
among  his  officers;  injustice  and  demoralization  caused 


WASHINGTON  AS  A  LEADER  81 

by  the  officious  interference  of  Congress  in  appointing  for 
eign  soldiers,  many  of  them,  unlike  Lafayette  and  Steuben, 
mere  soldiers  of  fortune,  to  positions  of  rank.  This  is  only 
a  partial  list. 

Yet  through  all  these  and  a  thousand  other  trials,  great 
or  petty,  which  would  have  broken  a  less  resolute  spirit, 
Washington  pursued  his  even  way,  with  his  mind  fixed  on 
the  main  purpose  of  the  war,  constantly  writing  to  Con 
gress  or  to  the  colonial  governments  and  pointing  out  the 
nature  and  urgency  of  his  needs;  pledging  his  private 
fortune  in  order  to  secure  food  and  clothes  for  his  soldiers; 
devising  plans  at  one  and  the  same  time  for  raising  funds 
and  for  defending  some  point  threatened  by  the  enemy; 
advising  Congress  against  a  projected  French  attack  upon 
Canada;  overwhelming  with  his  cold  scorn  the  Irish  ad 
venturer  Conway,  the  leader  in  the  abortive  conspiracy  to 
force  the  commander-in-chief  into  retirement  in  order  that 
Gates  might  succeed  him;  driving  the  traitor  Lee  to  the 
rear  because  of  his  behavior  at  the  battle  of  Monmouth; 
showing  the  greatest  tact  and  delicacy  in  his  dealings  with 
the  French  allies;  and,  in  a  word,  rising  equal  to  any  and 
every  emergency  which  he  was  called  upon  to  meet,  in  a 
manner,  it  is  safe  to  say,  that  could  have  been  matched 
by  no  other  man  in  a  generation  of  great  men. 


VIII 
THIRTEEN  JEALOUS   STATES 

AT  the  end  of  the  Revolutionary  War  the  American 
people  found  themselves  burdened  with  a  public  debt  due 
foreign  creditors,  France,  Holland  and  Spain,  of  between 
nine  and  ten  million  dollars.  This  sum  represented  only 
a  small  fraction  of  the  total  cost  of  the  war,  the  remainder 
having  been  borne  by  the  people  of  the  states.  It  was 
large  enough,  however,  to  embarrass  greatly  a  Congress 
which  had  no  power  to  lay  and  collect  taxes,  but  was 
dependent  upon  the  states  to  contribute  their  share  to 
meet  the  interest  payments  as  they  came  due.  Although 
the  population  of  the  country  had  increased  by  half  a  mill 
ion  during  the  war,  the  people  were  poor.  Commerce, 
which  had  flourished  in  the  New  England  states  especially, 
had  been  practically  destroyed.  Of  the  one  hundred  and 
fifty  whalers,  for  example,  hailing  from  the  port  of  Nan- 
tucket  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  no  fewer  than  one 
hundred  and  thirty-four  were  captured  by  British  cruisers 
and  fifteen  were  wrecked,  leaving  only  one  of  the  entire 
fleet  to  escape.  The  cod  and  mackerel  fisheries  and  the 
West  Indian  trade  had  been  similarly  ruined.  The  great 
body  of  the  people,  however,  supported  themselves  by 
agriculture,  and  to  this  they  turned  with  renewed  energy. 

Meanwhile  the  conditions  under  which  they  were  living 
had  changed  in  important  respects.  It  had  become  neces 
sary,  when  independence  was  declared,  for  all  of  the  states 

£2 


FREEDOM   UNDER   INDEPENDENCE  83 

except  the  two,  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island,  which 
had  been  allowed  to  continue  under  their  original  char 
ters,  to  adopt  new  constitutions  adapting  the  machinery 
of  the  state  governments  to  the  changed  conditions  grow 
ing  out  of  the  severance  of  relations  with  the  mother  coun 
try.  All  of  these  changes  were  in  the  direction  of  greater 
freedom.  Even  the  governors  of  the  states  were  shorn  of 
most  of  their  powers,  authority  being  concentrated  in  the 
representatives  of  the  people.  The  state  governments, 
consisting  of  a  chief  executive  and  an  upper  and  a  lower 
house,  followed  the  old  colonial  model,  the  upper  house 
growing  out  of  the  governor's  council.  A  varying  prop 
erty  qualification  was  necessary  for  membership  in  either 
house,  but  the  right  to  vote  was  extended  so  that  it  included 
all  freemen  except  those  who  through  shiftlessness  or  im 
providence  had  no  motive  in  keeping  taxes  low.  In  all 
but  one  of  the  states  judicial  officers  were  appointed  by 
the  governors  or  the  legislatures  for  a  definite  term,  for 
life,  or  during  good  behavior.  In  all  of  the  states  except 
Georgia  and  South  Carolina  where  slave  labor  was  becom 
ing  more  and  more  necessary  for  the  cultivation  of  rice 
and  indigo,  decided  steps  were  taken  toward  the  pro 
hibition  of  the  slave  trade  and  the  gradual  emancipation 
of  the  slaves.  Under  the  new  constitution  which  Massa 
chusetts  had  adopted  slaves  were  even  declared  to  be  free. 
Progress  was  also  made  toward  greater  freedom  in 
religious  worship.  In  several  of  the  states,  in  Virginia, 
South  Carolina  and  elsewhere,  the  Church  of  England  was 
disestablished,  and  parish  rates  and  religious  tests  were 
abolished,  thus  severing  the  connection  between  church 
and  state.  This  separation  was  not  wholly  effected  in 


84  THIRTEEN  JEALOUS  STATES 

Massachusetts  and  in  one  or  two  other  New  England 
states,  where  Congregationalism  remained  a  powerful  po 
litical  factor,  until  the  beginning  of  the  following  century. 
The  Presbyterians,  meanwhile,  who  had  developed  strength 
in  the  middle  states  and  in  northern  Virginia,  laid  the 
foundation  for  a  national  church  by  organizing  their  first 
general  assembly.  The  Methodists  also  chose  their  first 
bishop  at  a  conference  in  Baltimore  in  1784. 

The  chief  interest,  however,  of  the  thoughtful  men  in 
all  of  the  states  during  these  years  following  the  close  of 
the  Revolutionary  War  was  centred  in  the  apparently 
insoluble  problem  presented  by  a  Congress  without  power 
on  the  one  hand  and  thirteen  independent,  self-centred, 
jealous  states  on  the  other.  The  federal  idea  had  been 
of  slow  growth.  It  began  with  the  New  England  Con 
federation  under  which,  in  1643,  the  colonies  of  Massa 
chusetts  Bay,  Plymouth,  Connecticut  and  New  Haven 
made  an  offensive  and  defensive  league  for  the  regulation 
of  affairs  of  mutual  concern,  ecclesiastical  and  commercial 
as  well  as  military.  More  than  a  hundred  years  later, 
in  1754,  Franklin  submitted  to  the  congress  of  colonial 
delegates  at  Albany,  assembled  to  secure  the  aid  of  the 
Five,  then  become  the  Six,  Nations  in  the  impending  war 
with  the  French,  a  project  for  a  federal  union  of  all  the 
colonies  for  defensive  and  other  general  purposes.  This 
plan  in  which  the  idea  of  an  American  nation  was  fore 
shadowed  for  the  first  time  was  prophetic  of  the  potential 
power  and  greatness  which  to  the  keen  vision  of  Franklin 
lay  in  the  rapidly  expanding  population  and  in  the  rich 
ness  and  extent  of  the  land  west  of  the  Alleghanies.  Ac 
cepted  by  the  congress,  Franklin's  project  was  rejected  by 


86  THIRTEEN  JEALOUS   STATES 

the  colonial  legislatures  and  by  the  people.  He  was  in 
advance  of  his  time.  A  quarter  of  a  century  was  to  pass 
before  England  by  her  treatment  of  her  colonies  was  to 
force  them  into  a  successful  war  for  independence  and 
bring  them  face  to  face  with  the  necessity  of  forming  a 
federal  union. 

The  Continental  Congress,  first  assembled  in  Philadel 
phia  in  October,  1774,  an  emergency  body  called  into  be 
ing,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  critical  situation  in  Boston, 
sat  until  1781  before  its  powers  were  denned  by  the  Arti 
cles  of  Confederation,  exercising  by  general  consent  many 
of  the  functions  of  a  regularly  constituted  federal  gov 
ernment,  but  lacking  the  most  essential  of  all  attributes 
of  sovereignty,  the  authority  to  raise  money  by  taxation. 
The  Articles  of  Confederation  themselves  did  not  remedy 
this  fatal  defect  in  the  scheme,  but  left  the  control  of  all 
taxes,  import  duties  as  well  as  internal  taxes,  in  the  hands 
of  the  states  and  made  no  provision  by  which  the  federal 
government  could  enforce  its  will  upon  a  state  that  refused 
to  contribute  its  share  toward  the  general  expenses  of 
the  government.  Moreover,  no  bill  could  be  made  a  law 
without  the  vote  of  two-thirds  of  the  states  in  its  favor. 
Any  five  states,  therefore,  of  the  thirteen  could  block  a 
measure  and  prevent  it  from  passing.  Finally,  the  Articles 
of  Confederation  left  the  government  in  a  state  of  utter  and 
shameful  helplessness  in  its  dealings  with  foreign  nations. 
When,  at  the  end  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  England 
made  peace,  the  treaty  specified  the  thirteen  states  by  name; 
the  American  government  was  not  recognized  as  com 
petent  to  make  a  treaty  or  to  carry  out  the  terms  of  one. 

The   weakness   of   the   general   government   under    the 


THE   IDEA   OF   NATIONALITY  87 

v 
Articles  of  Confederation  was  chiefly  due  to  the  jealous 

watchfulness  with  which  the  states,  from  force  of  long 
habit,  guarded  their  hard-won  rights,  and  to  the  natural 
reluctance  with  which  they  resigned  any  of  these  rights 
to  an  abstraction  like  the  federal  government.  The  con 
sequence  was  that  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  however 
imposing  an  appearance  they  may  have  presented,  were 
only  the  shadow  and  not  the  substance  of  government. 
They  did  not  even  possess  the  germ  of  the  national  idea. 
That  idea  was  of  very  slow  growth  in  the  minds  of  men 
who  by  years  of  usage  and  by  generations  of  tradition 
had  become  adjusted  in  thought  and  practice  to  the  work 
ings  under  their  eyes  and  within  reach,  so  to  speak,  of 
their  hands  of  the  system  of  state  government. 

The  cardinal  principles  which  were  to  form  the  founda 
tion  of  the  national  system  -were  first  outlined  by  Washing 
ton  in  the  circular  letter  which  he  sent  to  the  governors 
of  the* states  when,  in  1783,  the  American  army  disbanded 
—the  results,  one  must  believe,  of  careful  observation 
of  the  inefficiency  of  the  government  during  the  war 
and  of  long  reflection  upon  possible  remedies  for  that 
inefficiency.  These  fundamental  requisites  were,  first,  an 
indissoluble  union  of  the  states  under  one  federal  head; 
second,  provision,  necessarily  involving  the  right  of  tax 
ation,  for  the  full  payment  of  the  public  debt;  third,  the 
organization  of  a  militia  system  on  a  uniform  basis  which 
would  make  the  force  available  for  federal  purposes;  and, 
fourth,  fraternity  and  co-operation  in  place  of  local  preju 
dices  and  parochial  policies,  a  spirit  of  mutual  concession 
and  a  willingness  to  sacrifice  individual  advantage  in  the 
interest  of  the  general  prosperity. 


88  THIRTEEN   JEALOUS    STATES 

This  high  political  ideal  was  reached  in  the  Constitution 
adopted  by  the  convention  of  1787,  but  the  pathway  to 
it  was  long  and  rough  and  thorny.  Few  persons,  it  is 
safe  to  say,  imagined  that  Maryland  was  turning  her  face 
toward  that  goal  when  she  refused  to  accept  the  Arti 
cles  of  Confederation  until  the  four  states,  Virginia,  New 
York,  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts,  which  under  their 
original  charters  or  by  military  occupation  laid  claim  to 
the  territory  lying  between  the  Ohio  River  and  the  Lakes, 
should  relinquish  those  claims  to  the  control  of  Congress. 
Maryland  had  proposed  earlier  that  there  be  included  in 
the  Articles  of  Confederation  one  providing  for  a  division 
of  this  territory  north  of  the  Ohio  into  states  under  the 
authority  and  direction  of  Congress.  The  delegates,  how 
ever,  were  not  ready  then  to  take  so  long  a  step  toward 
a  centralized  government.  The  refusal  of  Maryland  to 
recede  from  its  position  gave  rise  to  wide  discussion, 
with  the  ultimate  result  that  one  by  one  the  four  states 
concerned  relinquished  their  claims  to  the  territory  in 
dispute,  New  York  taking  the  lead.  Connecticut  was 
permitted,  as  a  compromise  measure,  to  reserve  for  edu 
cational  purposes  a  strip  of  land  on  the  southern  shore  of 
Lake  Erie. 

It  only  remained,  therefore,  for  Congress  to  provide 
a  series  of  laws  suitable  for  the  government  of  this  new 
territory  and  a  body  of  general  principles  to  which  it 
would  be  necessary  for  the  states  to  conform  as  they  were 
carved,  one  by  one,  out  of  this  territory.  These  laws  and 
principles  were  embodied  in  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  the 
influence  of  which  upon  subsequent  events  was  of  the 
greatest  importance.  They  provided,  in  brief,  that  this 


THE  ORDINANCE  OF    1787  89 

territory  north  of  the  Ohio  should  ultimately  be  divided 
into  not  more  than  five  states,  in  which  slavery  should  for 
ever  be  prohibited;  that  the  appointment  of  officers  to  gov 
ern  this  territory  should  rest  with  Congress;  that  freedom 
of  religious  worship  should  prevail  and  that  no  religious 
tests  should  be  required  of  public  officials;  that  the  right 
to  vote  should  be  restricted  to  the  possessors  of  freeholds 
of  fifty  acres  or  more;  and  that  no  law  should  be  passed 
impairing  the  obligations  of  contracts.  "I  doubt,"  said 
Daniel  Webster,  "  whether  one  single  law  of  any  law-giver, 
ancient  or  modern,  has  produced  effects  of  more  distinct, 
marked  and  lasting  character  than  the  Ordinance  of  1787." 

This  ordinance  carried  out  in  successful  detail  the  proj 
ect  which  Jefferson  had  brought  forward  in  the  Ordinance 
of  1784,  but  which  was  too  radical  a  measure  for  Congress 
to  accept  at  that  time.  Its  importance  and  significance  lay 
in  the  fact  that  its  passage  was  the  exercise  by  Congress  for 
the  first  time  of  national  sovereignty  in  its  highest  form,  and 
was  so  in  harmony  with  changed  public  opinion  in  favor 
of  a  strong  central  government  that  the  absence  of  any 
authority  in  the  Articles  of  Confederation  for  the  enact 
ment  of  so  sweeping  a  measure  and  the  neglect  of  Congress 
to  refer  the  matter  to  the  states  for  their  approval,  were 
both  acquiesced  in  by  the  people. 

What  were  the  causes  of  the  change  in  public  sentiment 
which  made  possible  this  Ordinance  of  1787,  under  which 
the  great  commonwealths  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michi 
gan  and  Wisconsin  were  one  by  one  formed  into  indepen 
dent  states?  The  chief  cause  was  the  fear,  which  by  the 
winter  of  1787  had  become  acute,  lest  the  country  should 
drift  into  anarchy  or  even  civil  war,  if  something  were 


90  THIRTEEN  JEALOUS   STATES 

not  done  immediately  to  avert  the  danger.  The  reality 
and  the  magnitude  of  this  danger  were  apparent  to  the 
more  thoughtful  men  throughout  the  older  states.  Com 
munication  between  the  principal  cities  was  slow  and  infre 
quent.  The  Boston  merchant  who  had  occasion  to  go  to 
New  York  took  more  time  for  the  journey,  in  one  of  the 
two  stages  that  sufficed  for  the  passenger  traffic  in  those 
days,  than  he  would  require  now  to  go  to  Seattle — a  week 
or  even  ten  days,  over  rough  roads  and  across  rivers  by 
ford.  The  antagonisms  and  jealousies  of  the  states  thus 
had  time  to  take  root  and  flourish  in  the  long  intervals  that 
elapsed  when  disputes  were  pending.  The  craze  for  paper 
money  had  threatened  to  bankrupt  several  of  the  states 
and  had  impoverished  the  people.  Riotous  outbreaks  in 
New  Hampshire  and  Vermont  were  followed  by  armed 
rebellion  under  the  leadership  of  Shays  in  western  Massa 
chusetts,  directed  mainly  against  the  courts  as  the  instru 
ments  of  the  state  for  the  collection  of  debts  which  the 
farmers,  in  their  distress,  could  not  pay.  Several  of  the 
northern  and  southern  states,  including  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee,  were  in  a  bitter  quarrel  over  the  proposed  com 
mercial  treaty  with  Spain,  in  the  interest  of  the  northern 
merchants  and  ship-owners,  the  price  for  which  was  to  be 
a  renunciation  of  the  claim  of  the  United  States  to  the  con 
trol  of  the  Mississippi  below  the  Yazoo.  So  intense  was 
the  feeling  over  the  matter  that  threats  of  secession  from 
the  confederation  were  freely  made  on  both  sides,  ceasing 
only  when  the  treaty  was  withdrawn.  And  the  climax 
was  reached  when  early  in  1787  New  York,  alone  of  the 
thirteen  states,  refused  her  assent  to  the  proposed  amend 
ment  to  the  Articles  of  Confederation  giving  Congress  the 


FEDERATION  A   NECESSITY  91 

power  to  lay  and  collect  import  duties  sufficient  to  meet 
the  interest  on  the  public  debt.  New  York  would  not  give 
up  the  revenue  from  or  the  control  of  her  customs,  and 
the  unanimous  consent  of  the  states  being  necessary  for 
such  an  amendment,  the  measure  failed  and  the  wheels  of 
the  federal  government  were  completely  blocked. 

Under  these  chaotic  conditions  public  sentiment  under 
went  a  rapid  change  in  favor  of  a  convention  that  should 
find  a  way  out  of  the  strife,  turmoil  and  danger,  through 
the  formation  of  a  stronger  government  with  greater  pow 
ers.  It  was  in  response  to  this  sentiment  that  Congress 
called  a  convention  to  meet  in  Philadelphia,  on  May  14, 
1787,  the  place  and  the  date  coinciding  with  those  of  the 
adjourned  Annapolis  convention,  in  which  Washington 
had  showed  a  deep  interest,  and  which  had  been  assem 
bled  to  discuss  and,  if  possible,  to  regulate  the  discordant 
commercial  relations  of  the  different  states. 


IX 
UNION  UNDER  THE  CONSTITUTION 

THE  Constitutional  Convention  was  as  representative 
not  only  of  the  political  wisdom  but  of  the  general  intelli 
gence  of  the  states  as  any  assembly  that  could  have  been 
convened.  Of  its  fifty-five  members  a  large  percentage, 
thirty-two,  consisted  of  men  of  college  training,  not  a  few 
of  whom  had  made  themselves,  by  special  study,  masters 
of  the  science  of  government.  These  included  nine  gradu 
ates  of  Princeton,  the  chief  of  whom  was  James  Madison, 
five  of  William  and  Mary,  four  of  Yale,  three  of  Harvard, 
two  of  Columbia,  one  of  whom  was  the  brilliant  young 
lawyer,  Alexander  Hamilton,  and  one  each  of  Pennsylvania 
and  of  several  English  and  Scotch  universities.  The  four 
men  who  in  breadth  of  knowledge  and  variety  of  expe 
rience  excelled  all  their  colleagues  in  this  distinguished 
assembly  were  Washington,  Franklin,  eighty-one  years  of 
age,  Madison  and  Hamilton. 

After  deliberating  more  than  four  months  in  secret  ses 
sion  the  convention  made  public  the  text  of  a  constitution 
which  from  that  day  to  this  has  aroused  the  admiration 
of  the  profoundest  of  political  philosophers  and  the  closest 
students  of  the  science  of  government.  That  these  men 
with  their  necessarily  limited  vision  $puld  have  drafted 
an  instrument  of  such  flexibility  as  to  adapt  itself  equally 
well  to  a  nation  of  less  than  four  millions  of  people  and  to 
a  nation,  with  its  outlying  dependencies,  of  over  a  hundred 

92 


HARMONY  THROUGH   COMPROMISES  93 

millions,  while  allowing  for  the  corresponding  develop 
ment  of  conflicting  interests  which  would  necessarily  arise 
from  this  enormous  increase  in  population,  has  been  justly 
looked  upon  as  little  short  of  marvellous.  "Yet,  after 
all  deductions, "  says  James  Bryce,  "it  ranks  above  every 
other  written  constitution  for  the  intrinsic  excellence  of 
its  scheme,  its  adaptation  to  the  circumstances  of  the 
people,  the  simplicity,  brevity  and  precision  of  its  lan 
guage,  its  judicious  mixture  of  definiteness  in  principle 
with  elasticity  in  details." 

These  results  were  not  attained,  however,  without  a 
prolonged  controversy  over  every  essential  point.  The 
states  from  force  of  long  habit  were  tenacious  of  their 
rights  and  suspicious  of  each  other,  and  when  at  last  an 
agreement  was  reached  on  some  controverted  question, 
this  result  was  attained  only  by  concessions  on  both  sides. 
The  form  which  the  two  houses  of  Congress  finally  took 
was  the  result  of  a  compromise,  suggested  by  the  delegates 
from  Connecticut,  between  the  conflicting  ambitions  of  the 
large  states  and  the  small  states,  a  compromise  that  was 
designed  to  equalize  the  representation,  as  far  as  it  was 
possible  to  do  so.  Other  important  provisions  were  based 
on  compromises.  The  northern  states  agreed  to  allow 
three-fifths  of  the  slave  population  in  the  South  to  be  in 
cluded  in  the  enumeration  that  was  to  serve  as  a  basis  for 
representation  in  the  lower  house  of  Congress,  and  to  post 
pone  for  twenty  years  the  suppression  of  the  African  slave 
trade.  At  this  period  cotton  was  cultivated  to  only  a  slight 
extent  in  the  South,  and  slave  labor  was  chiefly  serviceable 
for  rice  and  indigo  culture  in  Georgia  and  South  Carolina; 
slavery,  it  was  therefore  generally  thought,  would  die  out 


94  UNION   UNDER   THE   CONSTITUTION 

gradually.  A  provision  for  the  restoration  of  fugitive 
slaves  to  their  owners  was  also  accepted.  In  return  for 
these  concessions  the  consent  of  Georgia  and  South  Caro 
lina  was  secured  to  the  provision  allowing  the  federal 
government  to  have  complete  control  of  commerce.  The 
foundations  of  the  new  government  were,  in  fact,  laid  in 
compromise. 

The  debates  in  the  state  conventions  to  which  the  Con 
stitution  was  referred  for  ratification,  and  in  the  innumer 
able  newspapers  and  pamphlets  of  the  day,  immediately 
divided  the  public  into  two  parties,  the  Federalists  who 
favored  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  as  it  stood,  and 
the  anti-Federalists  who  opposed  its  adoption,  at  all  events 
unless  it  was  modified  in  one  particular  or  another.  The 
Federalists  had  by  far  the  better  of  these  arguments,  the 
ablest  champion  among  them  being  Hamilton.  The  Fed 
eralist  essays,  which  Hamilton,  with  assistance  from  Mad 
ison  and  Jay,  wrote  and  published  while  the  Constitution 
was  before  the  New  York  legislature  for  ratification,  con 
stitute,  according  to  John  Fiske,  "the  most  profound  trea 
tise  on  government  that  has  ever  been  written."  They 
were  of  unique  value  as  an  exposition  and  an  interpretation 
of  the  Constitution  in  that  they  were  written  by  the  men 
who  were  most  instrumental  in  giving  that  document  its 
distinctive  form  and  who  were  presumably  best  acquainted 
with  the  intentions  of  those  who  framed  it. 

One  by  one  the  states  ratified  the  Constitution,  although 
the  opinion  was  general  that  the  new  government  would  be 
experimental  merely  and  might  turn  out  to  be  as  unwork 
able  as  the  old  one  had  been  under  the  Articles  of  Confed 
eration.  The  absolute  and  immediate  need,  however,  of 


TASK   OF   THE   FEDERALIST  PARTY  95 

some  sort  of  a  centralized  government  was  so  universally 
conceded  that  a  large  majority  of  the  states  were  quite 
willing  to  give  the  new  Federalist  Constitution  a  trial.  It 
was  significant,  however,  of  the  absence  of  unanimity  of 
sentiment  that  the  great  states  of  Virginia  and  New  York 
should  still  be  wrangling  over  its  provisions  when  the 
requisite  number  of  states,  nine,  ratified  it.  In  time  all  fell 
into  line,  several,  however,  by  a  close  vote  and  one  or  two 
under  coercion.  The  first  ten  amendments  to  the  Con 
stitution  were  adopted  in  the  first  session  of  Congress  and 
were  immediately  ratified  by  the  states,  so  that  they  may 
be  regarded  as  a  part  of  the  original  instrument.  In  the 
nature  of  a  bill  of  rights,  they  were  designed  to  guarantee 
freedom  of  speech,  religion  and  person  and  the  protection 
of  property. 

The  Federalist  party  which  came  into  power  at  the  first 
election  under  the  Constitution  of  1789,  when  Washington 
was  chosen  President  and  John  Adams  Vice-President, 
remained  in  control  of  the  government  for  twelve  years — 
during  the  two  terms  of  Washington  and  the  one  term  of 
Adams,  Jefferson  having  been  elected  Vice-President  under 
Adams.  It  was  a  task  of  appalling  proportions  and  of 
unparalleled  difficulties  which  the  Federalists  in  this  period 
set  themselves  to  perform.  For  they  were  not  only  re 
quired  to  devise,  to  set  up  and  to  start  in  operation,  with 
out  precedents  to  guide  them,  the  highly-complicated  ma 
chinery  required  by  the  various  government  departments, 
including  the  United  States  courts,  but  they  were  also 
expected  to  create,  adopt  and  carry  into  effect  a  financial 
and  economic  policy  which  should  give  cohesion  and  power 
to  the  new  government  and  prosperity  to  the  country. 


96  UNION  UNDER  THE   CONSTITUTION 

This  task,  the  enormous  responsibilities  of  which  would 
have  crushed  an  ordinary  man,  was  undertaken  by  Hamil 
ton,  whom  Washington  had  made  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury  in  his  first  cabinet. 

No  wiser  choice  could  have  been  made.  For  Hamilton, 
although  he  was  only  thirty-two,  brought  to  this  tremen 
dous  undertaking  technical  knowledge  of  wide  range,  prac 
tical  skill  of  the  highest  order  in  the  application  of  this 
knowledge  to  existing  conditions,  rare  judgment  and  un 
wearying  industry.  What  was  of  even  greater  importance 
than  his  intellectual  equipment  was  the  fact  that  his  execu 
tion  of  this  task  wast>ased  upon  a  statesmanship  so  national 
in  its  scope  that  it  included  men  of  all  parties  throughout 
the  country  and  so  sound  and  so  far-reaching  that  its  effect 
upon  the  form  of  the  government  and  upon  the  public 
policy  which  was  developed  in  those  early  years  can 
never  be  effaced.  In  rapid  succession  Hamilton  submitted 
reports  and  bills  providing  for  the  creation  of  a  national 
bank,  a  mint  and  a  currency  system;  a  funding  plan  for 
turning  the  $75,000,000  or  so  of  public  debts,  foreign, 
domestic  and  state,  into  government  bonds;  and  revenue 
measures  laying  duties  on  imports  and  taxing  the  manu 
facture  of  spirits.  At  the  beginning  of  its  career  Con 
gress  had  passed  a  tariff  bill,  the  real  purpose  of  which  was 
to  produce  revenue  for  the  expenses  of  the  government, 
although  the  preamble  described  it  as  "for  the  encourage 
ment  and  protection  of  manufactures."  Hamilton,  how 
ever,  brought  forward  a  plan  designed  to  encourage  the 
establishment  and  to  foster  the  growth  of  manufactures 
by  a  system  of  bounties  and  protective  duties  which  had 
in  it  the  germ  of  the  protectionist  idea  on  which,  many 


HAMILTON  AND   THE   FEDERALISTS  97 

years  later,  parties  were  to  divide  and  a  great  economic 
policy  was  to  be  founded. 

Hamilton  hoped,  and  with  good  reason,  that  the  general 
effect  of  his  financial  and  economic  policy  would  be  to  sup 
ply  the  stimulus  and  the  means  for  the  development  of 
the  vast  resources,  industrial  and  commercial,  as  well  as 
agricultural,  which  his  prophetic  vision  saw  were  latent  in 
the  country.  At  the  same  time  his  policy  was  designed, 
in  the  words  of  Senator  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  "to  create  a 
strong  and  if  possible  a  permanent  class  all  over  the  coun 
try,  without  regard  to  existing  political  affiliations,  but 
bound  to  the  government  by  the  strongest  of  all  ties, 
immediate  and  personal  pecuniary  Interest."  If  this  end 
could  be  accomplished,  the  political  effect,  he  reasoned, 
would  be  of  enormous  advantage  in  strengthening  the 
power  and  increasing  the  prestige  of  the  central  govern 
ment. 

Out  of  the  immediate  discussion  which  these  bold  meas 
ures  precipitated  in  Congress  grew  the  Federalist  party 
headed  by  Hamilton  and  the  Republican  party  under  the 
leadership  of  Jefferson  who  was  also  a  member  of  Wash 
ington's  cabinet.  The  Federalists  favored  a  broad  con 
struction  of  the  Constitution  and  advocated  the  theory 
of  implied  powers  under  the  " general  welfare"  phrase.  In 
their  view  of  the  Constitution  the  rights  of  the  states  and 
of  individuals  were  subordinate  to  the  supreme  authority 
of  the  national  government.  Jefferson  and  Madison,  who 
soon  joined  the  Republican  ranks,  were  advocates,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  a  strict  construction  of  the  Constitution. 
To  them  and  their  followers  Hamilton's  policy  seemed 
to  be  devised  for  the  purpose  of  creating  and  protecting 


g8  UNION   UNDER   THE   CONSTITUTION 

privileged  classes.     Democratic  by  instinct  and  training  and] 
influenced  by  the  French  Revolution  and  its  flaming  procla- ; 
mation  to  the  world  of  liberty,  equality  and  the  rights  of 
man,  Jefferson  saw  in  the  rapid  development  of  a  highly- 
centralized  government  with  wellnigh  unlimited  authority 
the  ominous  threat  of  a  monarchy,  and  the  Federalists  were 
openly  accused  of  plotting  to  this  end.     There  was  some 
justification,  moreover,   for  these  accusations.     Hamilton 
was  by  no  means  alone  in  his  party  in  his  lack  of  sympathy 
with  the  ideas  of  the  French  Revolution  or  in  his  distrust] 
of  American  democracy.     The  epithet  "democrats"  which 
the  Federalists  applied  to  Jefferson  and  his  followers  was 
intended  to  express  their  contempt  in  much  the  same  way 
that  one  might  use  the  word  "demagogue"  to-day. 

The  first  significant  indication  that  the  Federalist  party 
was  losing  its  hold  upon  the  people  followed  the  ratification 
of  the  treaty  which  Jay  had  negotiated  in  1794  with  Eng 
land.  In  the  previous  year  the  French  republic  had  de 
clared  war  against  Great  Britain,  whereupon  the  United 
States  had  issued  a  proclamation  of  neutrality,  the  first 
declaration  of  the  American  policy  of  non-intervention  in 
the  wars  and  politics  of  Europe.  The  right,  however,  of 
American  merchant- vessels  as  neutrals  to  carry  provisions 
to  French  or  .British  ports  was  not  recognized  by  either 
belligerent.  Such  vessels  became  liable,  therefore,  to  seiz 
ure,  if  bound  for  any  British  or  French  port,  and  were 
captured  and  harassed  without  redress.  The  impressment 
of  American  seamen  for  service  on  British  men-of-war,  a 
practice  which  began  at  this  period,  also  added  to  the  bit 
terness  of  feeling  toward  England,  and  little  further  provo 
cation  was  needed  to  induce  the  United  States  to  declare 


DOWNFALL   OF   THE   FEDERALISTS  99 

war  against  that  nation.  Jay  was  sent  to  England  to  avert 
this  calamity,  and  the  treaty  which  he  negotiated  served 
this  purpose. 

To  the  Federalists  such  a  treaty,  although  it  did  not 
promise  on  its  face  to  bring  much  relief  to  American  com 
merce,  seemed  preferable  to  war  with  England;  and  the 
result  more  than  justified  this  expectation.  For  it  had 
the  effect  of  at  least  postponing  a  conflict  for  nearly  twenty 
years,  and  it  did  stimulate  American  commerce.  The  total 
exports  from  the  United  States,  not  including  foreign 
products  re-exported,  more  than  doubled  in  value  from 
1795  to  1801,  rising  from  $22,855,000  to  $47,020,000.  The 
total  imports  into  the  United  States  increased  in  the  same 
period  from  $69,756,000  to  $111,363,000.  To  the  Repub 
licans,  however,  this  treaty  of  Jay's  was  a  base  betrayal 
of  the  national  interests  and  honor  by  a  party  which  thus 
openly  and  shamelessly  avowed  its  subserviency  to  Eng 
land  and  its  sympathy  with  monarchical  ideas.  A  shower 
of  personal  abuse  and  vilification  was  hurled  upon  Wash 
ington  himself,  whose  popularity  even  in  Virginia,  where 
Republicanism  was  strongly  entrenched,  seemed  to  be  in 
danger  of  being  undermined. 

It  was  in  the  passage,  however,  in  1798  of  the  Alien  and 
Sedition  laws  that  the  Federalists  in  Congress  committed 
their  crowning  blunder.  Under  these  laws,  by  which 
Republican  editors  and  local  political  leaders  were  liable 
to  be  arrested  and  thrown  into  jail  or  expelled  from  the 
country,  the  Constitution  was  stretched  dangerously  near 
the  breaking-point.  The  apparent  purpose  of  these  laws 
was  to  suppress  free  speech  and  to  enable  the  Federalists, 
by  getting  rid  of  their  most  troublesome  opponents,  to 


ioo          UNION   UNDER   THE   CONSTITUTION 

establish  themselves  so  firmly  in  power  that  they  could 
not  be  dislodged.  The  real  purpose  of  the  Federalists  was 
to  exert  a  restraining  influence,  through  the  convenient 
means  of  the  federal  courts,  over  the  masses  of  the  people 
who,  according  to  the  advanced  theory  of  the  party,  were 
not  altogether  to  be  trusted. 

The  Republicans  were  quick  to  take  advantage  of  the 
political  opportunity  which  this  extreme  extension  of  the 
national  authority  over  the  individual  gave  them.  The 
Kentucky  and  Virginia  resolutions,  drawn  by  Jefferson  and 
Madison  respectively,  and  passed  by  the  legislatures  of 
those  states  in  1798,  were  intended  both  as  a  protest  against 
the  harshness  and  illegality  of  these  measures  and  as  a 
reminder  that  there  were  limits  beyond  which  the  federal 
government  could  not  go  in  its  dealings  with  the  state  and 
with  the  individual.  This  early  enunciation  of  the  state 
rights,  later  known  as  the  nullification  doctrine,  was  to 
serve  for  years  as  the  only  documentary  basis  on  which 
the  party  of  Jefferson  and  Madison  rested.  The  one  thing 
that  was  wanting  to  make  this  theory  of  state  sovereignty 
plausible,  if  not  sound,  was  brought  into  the  clear  light  by 
the  Civil  War  sixty  years  later,  that  sovereignty  is  only 
an  empty  name  if  it  has  not  the  means  and  the  power  to 
enforce  its  will. 

A  war  with  France,  as  foolish  in  its  origin  and  aim  as 
it  was  brief  in  duration,  could  not  be  made  to  help  the 
fortunes  of  the  Federalists.  Dissension  and  treachery  in 
Adams's  cabinet  and  a  quarrel  between  Adams  and  Hamil 
ton  who,  although  he  had  become  a  private  citizen,  was 
still  the  real  leader  of  the  party,  completed  the  demoraliza 
tion  of  the  Federalists,  who  lost  the  election  of  1800  after 


I 


WHITNEY  S  COTTON-GIN. 

From  a  photograph  of  the  model  in  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  Washington. 


102         "UNION  UNDER  THE   CONSTITUTION 

a  career  which 'began' in  honor  and  high  achievement  and 
ended  in  folly  and  disaster. 

The  life  of  the  American  people  did  not  concern  itself 
exclusively  with  political  matters,  momentous  and  impor 
tant  as  these  were,  in  this  decade.  The  invention  by  Eli 
Whitney,  a  Connecticut  school-master  living  in  Georgia, 
of  the  cotton-gin  in  1793  had  a  greater  effect  in  later  years 
upon  political,  industrial  and  social  conditions  in  the  South 
than  most  of  the  measures  passed  by  the  Federalist  Con 
gresses.  For  Whitney's  invention  enabled  a  negro  slave 
to  clean  a  thousand  pounds  of  cotton  a  day,  while  with  a 
roller  gin  he  could  clean  no  more  than  six  pounds  in  the 
same  time.  In  other  words  Whitney's  invention  increased 
the  value  of  slave  labor,  as  applied  to  this  branch  of  the 
cotton  industry,  more  than  one  hundred  and  sixty  fold. 
It  was  this  sudden  and  enormous  increase  in  the  value  of 
slave  labor  which  changed  the  attitude  of  Virginia  and  her 
neighbors  and  made  them  defenders  of  slavery  and  sharers 
in  the  immensely  profitable  industry  of  raising  slaves  for 
sale  to  the  cotton  planters. 

Under  the  stimulus  of  this  invention  and  of  the  per 
fection  in  England  of  machinery  for  manufacturing  cotton 
cloth  the  exports  of  this  great  staple,  as  it  was  soon  to 
become,  leaped,  in  the  decade  from  1791  to  1801,  from 
189,000  to  21,000,000  pounds.  The  same  year  of  Whit 
ney's  invention  saw  the  erection  in  Pawtucket  of  the  first 
successful  cotton  factory  in  America,  the  machinery  being 
copied  from  that  just  coming  into  use  in  English  mills. 

Other  industries  also  began  to  make  their  appearance. 
The  increase  in  the  number  of  newspapers  and  the  popu 
larity  of  the  pamphlet  as  a  political  weapon  had  caused  so 


RAPID   GROWTH  OF   POPULATION  103 

large  a  demand  for  rag  paper  that  by  1797  there  were 
sixteen  paper  mills  in  Connecticut  alone.  Early  in  Wash 
ington's  first  administration  anthracite  coal  had  been  dis 
covered  near  what  is  now  Mauch  Chunk,  Pennsylvania, 
but,  wood  being  plenty  and  cheap  and  transportation  to 
tide-water  being  prohibitively  expensive,  these  coal-fields 
were  allowed  to  lie  untouched.  Years  were  to  pass  before 
this  coal  would  be  needed  to  generate  steam-power  and 
before  steam-power  as  applied  either  to  boats  or  to  loco 
motive  engines  would  be  available  to  move  the  coal  from 
the  mines.  Experiments,  however,  with  various  types  of 
steam-power  as  applied  to  boats  were  taking  place  in  Eng 
land  and  in  America,  and  John  Fitch,  like  Whitney,  a 
Connecticut  inventor,  in  1790  had  constructed  a  steam-boat 
which,  propelled  by  paddles  arranged  on  the  sides,  reached 
a  speed  of  seven  knots  an  hour  and  was  afterward  used  to 
carry  passengers  on  the  Delaware  River. 

Meanwhile  the  population  of  the  United  States  as  shown 
by  the  census  had  increased  from  nearly  four  million  in 
1790  to  five  million  three  hundred  thousand  in  1800,  about 
thirty-five  per  cent.  The  most  populous  state  at  the  end 
of  the  century  was  Virginia,  with  not  far  from  nine  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants,  of  whom,  however,  about  one- third 
were  negro  slaves.  The  next  in  order  was  Pennsylvania, 
with  about  six  hundred  thousand  inhabitants,  of  whom 
fewer  than  four  thousand  were  slaves.  New  York  was 
third,  with  over  half  a  million  inhabitants,  of  whom  about 
twenty-one  thousand  were  slaves.  Fourth  in  the  list  came 
North  Carolina,  with  nearly  half  a  million  inhabitants,  of 
whom  about  one-fifth  were  slaves.  Massachusetts  followed 
with  a  population  of  somewhat  over  four  hundred  thousand, 


io4          UNION  UNDER  THE   CONSTITUTION 

slavery  having  been  abolished,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the 
new  state  constitution. 

In  the  decade  three  new  states  had  been  admitted  to  the 
federal  union,  Vermont  in  1791,  the  census  of  1790  having 
shown  the  state  to  contain  more  than  eighty-five  thousand 
inhabitants;  Kentucky  in  1792  and  Tennessee  in  1796. 
The  volume  of  the  stream  of  migration  which,  in  the  ten 
years  from  1790  to  1800,  poured  over  the  Alleghanies  and 
down  the  Ohio  Valley  into  this  fertile  territory  may  be 
inferred  from  the  fact  that  Kentucky  increased  its  pop 
ulation  in  that  time  by  three  hundred  per  cent— from 
73,677  to  220,955 — while  the  number  of  settlers  in  Tennes 
see  grew^in  the  same  interval,  in  practically  the  same  ratio, 
from  35,691  to  105,602.  In  1800  Ohio  territory  contained 
45,365  inhabitants,  and  Indiana  territory  5,641  only. 

The  centre  of  population  moved  directly  westward  in 
the  decade,  from  a  point  on  the  eastern  shore  of  Maryland 
a  little  south  of  east  from  Baltimore,  to  a  point  in  central 
Maryland  almost  exactly  north  of  Washington.  Under 
an  agreement  made  in  the  first  Congress,  as  a  result  of  one 
of  the  numerous  compromises  between  the  northern  and 
southern  claimants,  the  seat  of  government  was  to  remain 
in  Philadelphia  for  ten  years  and  was  then  to  be  trans 
ferred  to  the  District  of  Columbia.  It  is  a  curious  coin 
cidence  that  when  this  transfer  was  made,  at  the  end  of 
Adams's  term  of  office,  the  centre  of  population  for  the 
United  States  was  within  twenty-five  miles  of  the  new 
capital  of  the  nation. 


X 

AN  ERA  OF  EXPANSION 

THE  ten  years  following  the  inauguration  on  March  4, 
1 80 1,  of  Thomas  Jefferson  as  President  and  Aaron  Burr 
as  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  were  remarkable 
for  the  expansive  energy  shown  by  the  American  people. 
Jefferson  came  into  power  as  the  leader  of  the  Republican 
party,  the  cardinal  principle  of  whose  policy  had  been  a 
strict  construction  of  the  Constitution.  Yet  the  purchase 
from  Napoleon  for  fifteen  million  dollars  of  Louisiana,  the 
whole  vast,  unknown,  ill-defined  territory  lying  to  the 
west  of  the  Mississippi  River,  was  directly  at  variance  with 
this  principle.  Such,  however,  are  the  exigencies  of  state 
craft  that  the  Republican  administration  found  itself  at 
the  beginning  of  its  career  forced  by  circumstances  to  adopt 
the  very  course  for  which  it  had  condemned  the  Federalists 
and  to  give  a  broad  instead  of  a  strict  construction  to  the 
Constitution.  Happily  for  his  country  Jefferson  was  too 
big  a  man  to  be  frightened  from  the  path  on  which  he  had 
set  out  by  the  bugbear  of  political  consistency. 

Louisiana  at  different  times  and  by  different  treaties  had 
passed  from  the  hands  of  the  French  into  the  control  of 
Spain  and  then  back  to  France  again.  Napoleon's  leading 
motive  in  selling  it  was  to  cripple  his  mighty  adversary, 
England,  although  in  exactly  what  way  he  expected  this 
result  to  be  accomplished  is  not  clear.  If  his  expedition 
to  Santo  Domingo  had  not  met  with  disaster,  Louisiana 

105 


io6  AN   ERA   OF   EXPANSION 

might  have  become  a  powerful  French  colony.  Such  a 
colony,  however,  the  head-quarters  of  which  would  neces 
sarily  have  been  New  Orleans,  would  have  been  open  to 
attack  and  probable  capture  by  England's  fleet,  and  no  one 
knew  this  better  than  the  First  Consul.  Jefferson  let  it 
be  known,  moreover,  that  the  military  occupation  of  New 
Orleans  by  the  French  might,  and  very  probably  would, 
have  the  effect  of  forcing  the  United  States  into  an  alliance 
with  England,  and  such  a  result  was  far  from  what  Napoleon 
desired.  The  urgent  need  of  money  was  undoubtedly  an 
influential  factor  also  in  inducing  Napoleon  to  make  to 
Livingston  and  Monroe,  the  latter  of  whom  had  been  sent 
especially  to  France  to  bargain  for  the  port  of  New  Orleans 
and  for  west  Florida,  his  sudden  offer  of  Louisiana  as  a 
whole;  fifteen  millions,  one  may  believe,  being  welcome  in 
exchange  for  so  distant,  so  vague  and  so  exposed  a  posses 
sion. 

Jefferson's  ruling  passion  was  for  peace,  and  whenever 
his  conduct  of  affairs  showed  signs  of  weakness  or  vacil 
lation,  this  passion  supplies  the  key  to  its  meaning.  If 
Napoleon  had  landed  an  army  in  New  Orleans  his  troops 
would  have  met  no  opposition,  unless  the  hardy  frontiers 
men  of  Tennessee  and  Kentucky  had  undertaken  on  their 
own  responsibility  to  drive  the  French  out  of  the  country. 
Jefferson's  plan,  in  case  New  Orleans  was  occupied  by  the 
French,  was  to  postpone  any  attempt  to  oust  the  unwel 
come  invader  until  the  national  debt  had  been  substantially 
reduced  and  until  the  Mississippi  Valley  was  filled  with 
fighting  men. 

Fortunately  he  was  not  obliged  to  resort  to  this  Fabian 
policy,  but  could  contemplate  with  satisfaction  the  out- 


PURCHASE  OF  LOUISIANA  107 

come  of  his  first  venture  in  international  statecraft.  The 
emergency  through  which  he  had  passed  had  been  a  some 
what  rude  awakening  from  the  optimistic  dream  under 
the  soothing  influence  of  which  he  had  entered  upon  the 
task  of  governing.  Refined  in  his  tastes,  delighting  in  an 
intellectual  life  of  science  and  art,  sanguine  by  tempera 
ment,  he  was  a  theorist  who  aspired  to  be  the  leader  in  a 
new  era  of  peace  and  happiness  which,  his  imagination 
told  him,  was  about  to  dawn  upon  the  world.  "Political 
philanthropists"  is  the  felicitous  phrase  by  which  Henry 
Adams  characterizes  Jefferson  and  his  two  associates, 
Madison  and  Gallatin,  an  " aristocratic  triumvirate"  who, 
incongruously  enough,  found  themselves  at  the  head  of  the 
American  democracy. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  democracy  just  come  into 
power,  class  privileges  gradually  disappeared,  the  right  to 
vote  was  made  by  the  states  to  rest  upon  a  basis  of  man 
hood  alone,  and  the  courts  with  increasing  frequency  upheld 
the  rights  of  the  individual  as  against  the  authority  of  the 
federal  government.  At  the  head  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States,  appointed  to  that  exalted  post  by 
President  Adams  just  before  his  term  of  office  expired,  was 
John  Marshall,  the  great  Virginia  jurist,  whose  dislike  and 
distrust  of  Jefferson  were  as  profoundly  felt  as  they  were 
frankly  expressed,  and  it  was  upon  this  great  Federalist 
Chief  Justice  that  a  large  part  of  the  task  was  to  fall  of 
reconciling  democracy  and  nationality. 

The  purchase  in  1803  of  Louisiana  from  Napoleon,  con 
trary  though  it  was  to  the  policy  and  traditions  of  his  party, 
was  by  far  the  most  noteworthy  act  of  Jefferson's  two  ad 
ministrations.  At  a  stroke  it  more  than  doubled  the  area 


io8  AN  ERA  OF  EXPANSION 

of  the  United  States  and  gave  the  mid-continent  a  free 
water  route  for  all  time  to  the  sea,  enriching  the  nation 
with  untold  stores  of  mineral  and  agricultural  wealth.  For 
years  Jefferson  had  been  keenly  alive  to  the  prospective 
value  of  this  enormous  but  unknown  territory  beyond  the 
Mississippi.  When  he  was  a  member  of  Washington's 
first  cabinet  his  interest  in  scientific  pursuits  had  led  him 
to  attempt  the  organization  of  an  expedition  to  explore 
this  vast  land  of  mystery  in  the  expectation  that  informa 
tion  of  the  highest  value  would  thereby  be  obtained  about 
the  native  races,  the  animals,  plants  and  topography  of 
the  country.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  select  as  the  leader 
of  the  expedition  Meriwether  Lewis,  a  young  Virginian  of 
an  adventurous  turn  of  mind  who  possessed  resolution  and 
judgment  as  well  as  courage. 

A  more  favorable  opportunity,  however,  for  this  bold 
enterprise  had  to  be  awaited,  and  this  opportunity  came 
on  the  heels  of  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  from  Napoleon, 
when  the  whole  country  was  eager  with  curiosity  as  to  the 
distant  wilderness  for  which  the  government  had  paid 
fifteen  million  dollars  and  when  Jefferson  himself  was  anx 
ious  to  justify  to  his  fellow-countrymen  the  expenditure  of 
so  large  a  sum  of  money  for  such  a  purpose.  The  President 
again  turned  to  Lewis,  then  his  private  secretary,  as  the 
leader  for  this  expedition,  having  secured  the  approval 
of  Congress  for  the  venture.  Lewis  thereupon  associated 
with  himself  William  Clark,  to  both  of  whom  commissions 
respectively  as  captain  and  lieutenant  in  the  army  were 
given  in  order  to  impart  an  official  character  to  the  expedi 
tion  and  to  place  it  under  military  discipline.  As  a  tale 
of  danger,  hardship  and  adventure,  the  story  of  this  expe- 


SECTION  or  CLARK'S  MAP  or  HIS  ROUTE. 


no  AN   ERA   OF   EXPANSION 

dition  is  without  a  parallel  in  the  annals  of  American 
exploration.  In  May,  1804,  Lewis  and  Clark  left  the 
neighborhood  of  St.  Louis,  then  a  struggling  village  which 
a  few  weeks  earlier  had  been  transferred  to  the  United 
States  authorities,  and,  with  forty-five  men  in  three  boats, 
travelled  up  the  Missouri  River,  over  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
and  down  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  River.  Returning 
by  nearly  the  same  route  they  arrived  at  St.  Louis  in  Sep 
tember,  1806,  with  the  loss  of  only  three  men,  one  by  de 
sertion,  one  by  disease,  and  one,  an  Indian,  by  being  killed. 
The  first  white  men  to  cross  the  continent,  they  brought 
back  journals  which  for  a  hundred  years  have  been  a  store 
house  of  information  for  ethnologists,  naturalists  and  other 
scientific  investigators. 

In  May,  1791,  thirteen  years  before  Lewis  and  Clark  set 
out  on  their  adventurous  journey,  Captain  Robert  Gray 
in  command  of  the  Columbia,  a  Boston  ship  of  only  two 
hundred  and  thirteen  tons,  engaged  in  the  sea-otter  trade 
between  the  northwest  coast  and  China,  had  been  the  first 
to  enter  the  mouth  of  the  great  river  separating  the  present 
states  of  Washington  and  Oregon.  Sailing  up  this  broad 
stream  a  distance  of  twenty-five  miles  Captain  Gray  gave 
it  the  name,  from  that  of  his  ship,  which  it  has  borne  since 
then.  In  1787  the  same  vessel  had  made  the  pioneer  voy 
age  among  American  merchantmen  to  this  distant  coast, 
the  inspiration  for  the  venture  coming  from  the  narrative 
of  a  young  American  seaman,  John  Ledyard,  who  had 
accompanied  Captain  Cook  to  this  " Oregon  country," 
as  it  came  to  be  called,  and  who  had  noted  in  the  posses 
sion  of  the  natives  an  abundance  of  sea-otter  skins  which 
could  be  got  in  exchange  for  knick-knacks  and  sold  at  a 


EXPLORING   THE   CONTINENT  in 

high  profit  in  China.  Captain  Gray  on  this  earlier  voyage 
brought  the  Columbia  back  to  Boston  by  way  of  China, 
where  he  sold  his  furs  and  purchased  a  cargo  of  tea,  thus 
being  the  first  American  master-mariner  to  carry  the  United 
States  flag  around  the  world  and  to  open  the  way  for  the 
valuable  fur  trade  which  John  Jacob  Astor  developed 
several  years  later.  His  discovery  of  the  Columbia  River 
was  largely  the  basis  on  which  the  United  States  estab 
lished  its  claim  to  the  rich  Oregon  country  drained  by  its 
waters. 

While  Lewis  and  Clark  were  absent  on  their  memorable 
journey,  another  expedition,  also  organized  for  the  purpose 
of  gathering  information  with  reference  to  the  new  terri 
tory  embraced  in  the  Louisiana  purchase, —twenty  men 
under  the  command  of  an  ambitious  soldier  who  had  fought 
in  the  Revolutionary  War,  Captain  Zebulon  Montgomery 
Pike, — was  sent  out  by  boat  from  the  military  head 
quarters,  at  St.  Louis,  of  General  James  Wilkinson  to  ex 
plore  the  head-waters  of  the  Mississippi.  Returning  after 
having  reached  Cass  Lake  as  his  furthest  point,  Pike  at  the 
head  of  another  party  penetrated  the  unknown  country  to 
the  southwest,  including  the  head-waters  of  the  Arkansas 
River  and  the  mountains  of  Colorado,  carrying  the  Amer 
ican  flag  even  into  the  disputed  territory  on  the  borders  of 
New  Spain,  where  he  and  his  men  were  arrested  and  re 
turned  to  the  United  States  authorities.  His  official  nar 
rative  of  his  discoveries,  experiences  and  adventures  is  a 
fitting  complement  to  the  journals  of  Lewis  and  Clark. 

Navigation  on  the  waterways  which  were  brought  under 
the  control  of  the  United  States  by  the  purchase  of  Loui 
siana  was  made  easy  and  commercially  profitable  by  the 


ii2  AN  ERA  OF   EXPANSION 

successful  application,  which  Robert  Fulton,  who  had 
financial  and  other  support  which  Fitch  had  lacked,  made 
in  1807  of  steam-power  to  boats  propelled  by  paddle- 
wheels.  Fulton's  ingenuity  had  been  shown  by  his  ex 
periments  with  torpedoes  and  submarine  boats  in  France, 
where  he  met  Robert  R.  Livingston,  the  American  minis 
ter.  The  two  became  warm  friends,  and  Livingston,  whose 
influence  and  purse  were  always  at  the  service  of  genius, 
was  of  much  assistance  to  him  politically  and  financially. 
Fulton  developed  the  paddle-wheel  idea  which  had  long  lain 
in  his  mind,  and,  applying  it  to  the  Clermont,  the  name  of 
which  was  taken  from  Chancellor  Livingston's  seat  on  the 
Hudson,  drove  that  pioneer  vessel  to  Albany,  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles,  in  thirty-two  hours,  making  the 
return  journey  in  thirty.  This  invention  worked  an  imme 
diate  revolution  in  inland  water  transportation.  "It  will 
give  a  cheap  and  quick  conveyance,"  wrote  Fulton  to  his 
friend  Joel  Barlow,  after  describing  the  trip  of  the  Clermont, 
"to  the  merchandise  on  the  Mississippi,  Missouri  and  other 
great  rivers  which  are  now  laying  open  their  treasures  to 
the  enterprise  of  our  countrymen."  Within  a  few  years 
steam-boats  were  plying  on  all  of  these  western  rivers  as 
well  as  on  the  inland  waterways  along  the  Atlantic  sea 
board. 

Meanwhile  the  American  merchant  marine  had  been 
suffering  to  such  an  extent  from  the  depredations  of  the 
Barbary  pirates  of  Algiers,  Tunis  and  Tripoli  that,  despite 
his  passion  for  peace,  Jefferson  had  finally  been  obliged  to 
send  fleet  after  fleet  to  the  Mediterranean  in  order  to  check 
their  ravages  on  American  commerce.  Through  the  energy 
and  activity  in  1803  of  Captain  Preble  these  licensed  pirates 


ii4  AN  ERA  OF   EXPANSION 

were  finally  subdued,  and  were  forced  to  sue  for  peace 
and  to  forego  further  exactions  of  tribute.  The  story  of  the 
exploits  of  American  sailors  in  this  curious  conflict  forms  a 
brilliant  page  in  the  early  history  of  the  American  navy. 

A  hundred  and  more  years  ago  the  American  merchant- 
vessels  were  a  large  factor  in  the  wealth  of  the  young  nation 
and  were  well  worthy  of  government  protection.  The 
great  adaptability  of  the  New  Englanders  for  the  sea  was 
well  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Revolutionary  War  there  were  more  than  three  hundred 
vessels  hailing  from  Massachusetts  ports  alone  engaged  in 
whale-fishing  in  the  north  and  south  Atlantic.  After  the 
war  this  initiative  and  energy  found  new  and  wider  chan 
nels  in  which  to  expend  themselves.  All  the  capital  that 
was  available  was  turned  into  ships  and  outfits,  for  the 
richest  prizes  to  be  had  in  those  days  were  to  be  won  in  the 
ocean  carrying  trade. 

The  results  were  that  in  the  year  when  Jefferson  was 
elected  President,  1800,  the  ship-owners  of  the  United  States 
had  vessels  to  the  amount  of  nearly  seven  hundred  thousand 
tons  engaged  in  the  foreign  trade.  In  the  previous  decade 
there  had  been  a  significant  decrease  from  one  hundred  and 
fifteen  thousand  to  forty  thousand  in  the  tonnage  of  the 
British  shipping  entering  and  clearing  from  American  ports; 
vessels  owned  in  the  United  States  were  carrying  freights 
heretofore  taken  by  British  ships.  By  1807  the  tonnage 
of  American  ships  had  increased  to  eight  hundred  and  forty 
thousand,  and,  ignoring  the  temporarily  depressing  effect 
of  the  embargo,  which  will  be  discussed  among  the  causes  of 
the  War  of  1812,  the  United  States  in  1810  had  a  total  of 
nine  hundred  and  eighty-four  thousand  tons  of  shipping 


A   GREAT  MERCHANT  MARINE  115 

registered  for  the  foreign  trade.  In  the  same  year,  more 
over,  there  were  new  ships  of  a  total  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty-seven  thousand  tons  built  in  the  United  States,  and 
ninety-one  and  a  half  per  cent  cf  all  American  exports  and 
imports  were  carried  in  American  vessels.  Allowing  an 
average  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  tons  to  a  vessel— 
the  average,  according  to  the  records  of  the  Department  of 
Commerce  and  Labor,  was  one  hundred  and  eighty-three 
tons  in  1813  and  one  hundred  and  ninety-seven  tons  in 
1823 — it  appears  that  the  United  States  had  as  available 
for  the  foreign  carrying  trade  in  1811  a  fleet  of  not  far  from 
six  thousand  vessels. 

The  merchandise  which  formed  the  cargoes  of  this  fleet 
increased  in  value  from  seventy-one  million  dollars  in  1800 
to  over  one  hundred  and  eight  millions  in  1807,  dropping 
to  less  than  sixty-seven  millions  in  1810  as  a  result  of  the 
embargo  and  non-intercourse  policy  adopted  by  Jefferson. 
What,  do  you  ask,  were  the  cargoes  which  these  thousands 
of  American  vessels  bore  from  the  ports  of  the  United 
States?  From  the  North  chiefly  lumber  and  food  products 
—flour,  beef,  pork  and  dried  fish;  from  the  South,  cotton, 
tobacco,  rice,  indigo,  tar,  pitch,  turpentine,  sugar  and  mo 
lasses,  the  last  two  articles  from  Louisiana.  And  on  the 
return  voyages  they  brought  fabrics  and  hardware  from 
England,  wines  and  oils  from  the  continent,  tea  from  China, 
and  pepper  from  Sumatra.  The  exports  of  cotton  in 
creased  enormously  under  the  stimulus  of  Whitney's  in 
vention  and  the  high  prices  following  the  development  of 
cotton  manufacturing.  In  1799,  when  the  price  varied 
from  twenty-eight  to  forty-four  cents  a  pound,  nearly 
eighteen  million  pounds  of  this  staple  were  exported  from 


n6  AN  ERA  OF  EXPANSION 

the  United  States.  Ten  years  later,  in  1809,  the  price  had 
fallen  to  sixteen  cents  and  a  fraction,  and  the  volume  of 
exports  had  risen  to  over  ninety-three  million  pounds.  By 
iSn  New  England  had  eighty  thousand  spindles  in  opera 
tion  in  her  cotton  mills.  The  annual  value,  moreover,  of 
the  tobacco  exported  from  the  United  States  in  the  first  six 
years  of  the  century  varied  from  five  and  a  half  to  six  and 
a  half  million  dollars. 

The  population  of  the  states  had  increased  in  the  decade 
by  nearly  two  millions  of  people,  the  total  in  1810  being 
more  than  seven  and  a  quarter  millions.  The  growth  was 
naturally  largest  in  the  border  states,  while  the  territory 
of  Indiana  contained  nearly  twenty-five  thousand  people- 
almost  five  times  the  number  in  1800 — and  Illinois  had  a 
population  of  over  twelve  thousand. 


XI 

THE  WAR  OF  1812  AND  ITS  CAUSES 

THE  honor  which  came  to  Jefferson  in  his  first  adminis 
tration  through  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  was  forgotten 
in  the  dishonor  which  his  policy  of  " peaceable  coercion" 
brought  upon  the  American  flag  in  his  second  administra 
tion.  The  reduction  of  the  national  debt  occupied  a  far 
larger  place  in  the  mind  of  the  President  than  the  protec 
tion  of  the  American  sailor  against  impressment  or  the 
defense  of  American  shipping  against  seizure.  Indeed, 
Jefferson,  reflecting  the  view  of  the  agricultural  interests 
which  formed  the  mass  of  his  party,  looked  with  disapproval 
on  the  growth  and  activity  of  the  American  merchant 
marine.  The  rapid  increase  in  the  size  and  wealth  of  the 
cities  on  the  seaboard  also  gave  him  concern.  Unless  this 
development  were  arrested  there  was  danger,  he  thought, 
that  the  balance  that  should  subsist  in  an  ideal  republic 
between  agriculture,  manufactures  and  commerce  would 
be  disturbed.  Madison,  who  succeeded  him,  largely  shared 
these  views,  and,  as  a  consequence  of  this  attitude  on  the 
part  of  the  Republican  administrations,  the  sailors  and 
vessels  of  the  United  States  were  subjected  to  greater  indig 
nities  during  the  decade  preceding  the  War  of  1812  than  the 
shipping  of  any  nation  had  ever  suffered. 

These  indignities  were  *due  to  two  causes,  first,  the 
desire  on  the  part  of  England  to  cripple  the  commerce, 
already  grown  to  large  proportions,  of  this  new  and  upstart 

117 


n8         THE   WAR   OF   1812   AND   ITS   CAUSES 

nation,  which  threatened  to  drive  English  merchant-ships 
from  the  seven  seas;  and,  secondly,  to  the  necessity  Eng 
land  felt  herself  to  be  under,  in  the  face  of  Napoleon's 
growing  power  and  ambition,  of  maintaining  the  efficiency 
of  her  war-vessels  by  keeping  the  complement  of  their 
crews  full.  In  accordance  with  the  theory  which  Great 
Britain  had  always  held,  "once  a  subject,  always  a  sub 
ject,"  American  vessels  were  overhauled  wherever  they 
were  found,  even  at  the  entrance  to  the  port  of  New  York, 
and  seamen  alleged  to  be  of  British  birth  were  forcibly 
taken  from  the  crews  and  compelled  to  serve  in  English 
men-of-war.  There  was  no  redress  either  for  the  act  or 
for  the  arrogance,  insolence  and  brutality  which  more  often 
than  not  accompanied  the  act.  And  so  active  were  Eng 
lish  naval  officers  in  carrying  impressment  into  practice 
that  by  1807  there  were  no  fewer  than  six  thousand  Ameri 
can  seamen  who  were  serving  against  their  will  in  the 
British  fleet  and  whose  cases  had  been  reported  to  the 
State  Department  at  Washington.  How  many  similar  in 
stances  were  unreported  to  a  government  which  gave  its 
impressed  sailors  no  help  will  never  be  known. 

On  the  other  hand,  Great  Britain's  contention  was  that, 
if  the  federal  or  local  authorities  in  the  United  States  lacked 
the  power  or  the  disposition  to  assist  the  naval  officers  or 
the  merchant  captains  of  her  vessels  in  recovering  the 
sailors  who  deserted  by  the  score  whenever  a  British  vessel 
touched  at  an  American  port,  she  was  justified  in  searching 
American  merchantmen,  and  even  American  war-vessels, 
in  order  to  recover  these  deserters.  Owing  to  the  alluring 
opportunities  'held  out  by  the  American  merchant  service, 
these  desertions  had  become  so  numerous  as  really  to  alarm 


IMPRESSMENT  OF   AMERICAN   SEAMEN       119 

the  English  government  lest  the  efficiency  of  England's 
fighting  force  in  the  navy  should  be  impaired.  In  the 
perspective  of  a  hundred  years,  moreover,  it  is  possible  to 
understand  the  unwillingness  of  England,  independent  of 
her  theory  of  allegiance,  to  recognize  as  valid  American 
citizenship  papers  which,  according  to  Henry  Adams, 
"were  issued  in  any  required  quantity  and  were  transferred 
for  a  few  dollars  from  hand  to  hand."  An  English  naval 
officer,  having  the  power  to  enforce  his  will,  was  thus  at 
liberty  to  treat  as  fraudulent  the  citizenship  papers  of  as 
many  sailors  on  an  American  merchantman  as  he  needed 
in  order  to  fill  the  complement  of  his  crew,  and  out  of  the 
gross  abuse  of  this  power,  often  exercised  in  a  needlessly  irri 
tating  and  humiliating  manner,  grew  a  condition  of  affairs 
that  became  more  and  more  difficult  to  bear  every  year. 

American  shipping  meanwhile  was  suffering  severely 
from  seizures  and  confiscations  for  which  there  was  no 
redress,  being  ground  ruthlessly  between  the  upper  and  the 
nether  millstones  of  British  commercial  avarice  and  Napo 
leon's  greed  for  war  funds.  Without  warning,  the  British 
courts  suddenly  reversed  their  ruling  by  which  breaking 
bulk  and  reshipping  in  an  American  port  had  made  a  neu 
tral  cargo  safe  from  capture,  and  the  result  was  that  more 
than  a  hundred  vessels  flying  the  United  States  flag  were 
taken  as  prizes  by  English  cruisers  into  the  home  or  colonial 
ports  of  Great  Britain.  The  embargo,  putting  an  end  to 
foreign  commerce,  which  went  into  operation  late  in  1807 
and  by  which  Jefferson  hoped  to  starve  England  into  a 
cessation  of  this  persecution,  left  American  ships  idle  at 
their  wharves,  while  their  owners  and  sailing  masters  were 
reviling  the  "southern  oligarchy"  controlling  the  adminis- 


120         THE   WAR   OF   1812   AND   ITS   CAUSES 

tration  for  its  incompetence.  The  effect  of  the  embargo 
was  seen  in  the  decrease  in  the  value  of  exports  from  the 
United  States  from  $49,000,000  in  1807  to  $9,000,000  in  1808. 

Some  relief  came  to  the  harassed  shipping  interests  in 
1809,  when  Madison  succeeded  Jefferson  as  President, 
through  the  substitution  of  the  Non-intercourse  law,  forbid 
ding  trade  with  Great  Britain  and  France,  for  the  embargo 
which  had  utterly  failed  of  its  purpose  and  had  bitterly 
incensed  the  commercial  states  against  the  administration. 
This  relief  was  short-lived,  however,  for  of  the  entire  fleet 
of  American  merchant-vessels  which  in  the  first  year  of 
Madison's  administration  were  induced  to  set  sail,  in  the 
mistaken  belief  that  continental  ports  were  at  last  open 
to  their  cargoes,  very  few  returned.  From  the  ports  of 
Italy  to  those  of  Norway  American  vessels  to  the  number 
of  fully  two  hundred,  and  worth,  with  their  cargoes,  many 
millions  of  dollars,  were  confiscated  and  sold  by  the  orders 
of  Napoleon,  ostensibly  in  retaliation  for  the  Non-inter 
course  act,  but  really  in  order  to  supply  him  with  much- 
needed  funds. 

British  aggressions  continued,  despite  the  ominous  note 
of  a  deeper  and  wider  feeling  of  popular  resentment  which 
appeared  in  several  measures  adopted  by  Congress.  The 
vacillation  and  fear  heretofore  inspired  by  the  overwhelm 
ing  size  and  power  of  the  British  fleet  and  the  British 
armies  were  giving  way  to  a  wrath  which  made  war  in 
evitable,  let  the  consequences  be  what  they  might.  The 
presence  of  several  new  men,  young  and  ardent,  in  Congress, 
conspicuous  among  whom  were  Clay  and  Calhoun,  and 
Madison's  desire  for  a  re-election,  were  also  factors  which 
made  for  war,  Finally,  in  June,  i8i2,*war  was  declared, 


is 


122          THE   WAR   OF    1312   AND   ITS   CAUSES 

the  large  majority  of  the  votes  in  Congress  in  favor  of 
hostilities  coming  from  south  of  the  Delaware  River.  De 
spite  impressments  and  seizures  the  New  England  states 
were  violently  opposed  to  any  war  and  especially  to  a  war 
with  their  best  customer,  England,  so  slight  had  been  the 
growth,  in  the  feverish  and  all-absorbing  commercial  ac 
tivity  of  the  past  decade,  of  the  idea  of  nationality. 

The  administration  placed  its  chief  reliance  upon  the 
state  militia,  with  which  it  was  proposed  to  invade  Canada, 
and  upon  the  distress  in  England  and  in  the  British  colonies 
which  would  follow  the  cutting  off  of  the  food  supply  from 
America.  Little  was  expected  from  the  half-dozen  or  so 
frigates,  with  eight  or  ten  smaller  warships,  of  the  American 
navy,  in  view  of  the  force  of  a  hundred  war-vessels  which 
Great  Britain  kept  on  the  American  station,  out  of  her 
available  fleet  of  more  than  a  thousand  sail. 

When,  however,  on  a  day  in  midsummer  the  United 
States  frigate  Constitution,  Captain  Isaac  Hull,  arrived  at 
Boston  with  two  hundred  and  sixty-seven  prisoners  from 
the  British  frigate  Guerriere  which  she  had  dismasted, 
captured  and  blown  up,  there  was  great  rejoicing,  even  in 
Federalist  New  England,  where  the  conflict  was  even  then 
contemptuously  referred  to  as  "Mr.  Madison's  war." 
Something,  it  was  felt,  had  at  last  been  done  to  avenge  the 
insult  involved  in  the  attack,  five  years  earlier,  of  the  Leop 
ard  upon  the  Chesapeake  and  to  restore  a  little  of  the  na 
tional  self-respect.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  two  other 
British  frigates,  the  Macedonian  and  the  Java,  had  been 
captured  or  destroyed,  the  former  by  the  United  States 
and  the  latter  by  the  Constitution,  while  two  fights  between 
smaller  vessels  had  resulted  in  American  victories.  In 


AMERICAN  VICTORIES  ON  THE   SEA         123 

1813  the  contests  resulted  more  evenly,  each  side  losing 
three  vessels  in  single  ship  fights,  the  capture  of  the  Chesa 
peake  by  the  British  frigate  Shannon  being  a  severe  blow 
to  American  pride  in  its  newly-discovered  sea-power,  as  was 
also  the  loss  in  Valparaiso  harbor  in  1814  of  the  American 
ship  Essex  to  the  British  frigate  Phoebe.  The  greatly  su 
perior  number  of  the  British  vessels  resulted,  after  the  first 
year  or  so  of  the  war,  in  the  capture  or  blockading  of  all 
the  American  frigates. 

Colonel  Roosevelt  in  his  Naval  War  of  1812  says  that 
the  two  things  which  contributed  to  the  American  victories 
were,  first,  the  excellent  make  and  armament  of  the  ships, 
and,  second,  the  skilful  seamanship,  excellent  discipline 
and  superb  gunnery  of  the  men  who  were  in  them.  A  not 
inconsiderable  factor  also  in  bringing  about  the  American 
victories  was  the  careless  over-confidence  with  which  these 
seasoned  British  sailors  of  many  hard-fought  European 
campaigns  entered  upon  what  seemed  like  the  holiday  task 
of  teaching  the  despised  Yankees  a  few  fundamental  prin 
ciples  of  naval  warfare.  In  several  engagements  the  British 
vessels  were  somewhat  overmatched  in  men  and  in  arma 
ment,  but  not  to  such  an  extent  as  to  explain  the  great 
disparity  in  losses  due  to  the  marked  superiority  of  the 
American  gunners.  In  the  fight  in  which  the  conditions 
were  most  nearly  equal,  between  the  American  eighteen-gun 
ship-sloop  Wasp  and  the  British  eighteen-gun  brig-sloop 
Frolic,  the  latter  lost  both  of  her  masts  and  ninety  killed 
and  wounded  out  of  a  crew  of  one  hundred  and  ten,  her  hull 
being  riddled.  The  American  loss  was  only  ten  men  killed 
and  wounded  in  a  crew  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-five. 
The  battle  was  fought  in  a  heavy  sea,  and  while  most  of  the 


i24         THE  WAR  OF   1812  AND   ITS   CAUSES 

British  shots,  fired  when  the  ship  was  on  the  crests  of  the 
waves,  went  wide  or  did  little  damage  to  the  rigging,  the 
Americans  fired  as  they  had  been  taught,  on  the  downward 
roll  of  their  vessel,  their  shots  doing  frightful  execution. 

Meanwhile,  the  " invasion  of  Canada"  had  turned  out  a 
fiasco.  Hull's  disgraceful  surrender  to  Brock  gave  Detroit 
and  Michigan  to  the  British  who  threatened  even  Ohio. 
They  were  forced  back  into  Canada,  however,  by  the  brill 
iant  naval  victory  of  Perry's  improvised  squadron  on  Lake 
Erie,  while  Macdonough's  signal  victory  in  a  somewhat 
similar  battle  on  Lake  Champlain  compelled  an  army  of 
British  veterans,  released  for  service  in  America  by  the 
fall  of  Napoleon,  to  turn  back.  Another  British  force, 
landing  from  Chesapeake  Bay,  marched  to  Washington  and 
burned  several  of  the  public  buildings.  The  scene  of  the 
final  land  battle  of  the  war,  which  was  fought  in  January, 
1815,  several  weeks  after  the  treaty  of  peace  had  been 
signed,  but  before  the  news  had  arrived  in  America,  was 
south  of  New  Orleans  where  Andrew  Jackson,  with  his 
Tennessee  and  Mississippi  riflemen,  protected  by  breast 
works,  shot  down  the  British  regulars  by  the  hundreds  as 
they  advanced  in  close  formation  time  and  again  over  open 
ground,  showing  thereby  that  they  had  learned  nothing 
from  the  experience  of  their  predecessors  at  Bunker  Hill. 
The  British  loss  in  killed  and  wounded  was  over  three 
thousand  in  an  attacking  force  of  about  eight  thousand 
veterans;  the  American  loss  was  insignificant. 

Peace  had  been  brought  about  by  a  variety  of  influences— 
the  downfall  of  Napoleon  and  the  weariness  of  the  English 
people  after  their  long  series  of  fierce  wars;  the  high  prices 
of  food,  flour  selling  for  fifty-eight  dollars  a  barrel  in  London 


RAVAGES  OF  AMERICAN  PRIVATEERS        125 

in  1813;  and,  finally,  the  ravages  of  American  privateers 
on  British  commerce.  A  strong  argument  could  be  framed 
to  show  that  it  was  chiefly  economic  distress  which  finally 
brought  England  to  terms,  and  that  this  distress  was 
mainly  caused  by  American  privateers.  When  war  was 
declared  there  were  fully  forty  thousand  men  in  the  Ameri 
can  merchant  marine.  Within  sixty  days  no  fewer  than 
one  hundred  and  fifty  swift,  heavily  sparred  vessels, 
manned  and  armed  as  privateers,  left  American  ports  to 
prey  on  British  commerce  in  the  north  Atlantic.  These 
were  followed  by  others  until  there  were  more  than  five 
hundred  American  privateers,  carrying  nearly  three  thou 
sand  guns,  taking  part  in  the  war.  The  value  of  the  thir 
teen  hundred  vessels,  with  their  cargoes,  which  these  priva 
teers  captured,  is  estimated  at  thirty-nine  million  dollars 
— about  six  times  the  value  of  the  British  ships  and  cargoes 
which  the  vessels  of  the  American  navy  captured  in  the 
same  period.  These  privateers  were  manned  by  as  skilful, 
hardy  and  resourceful  a  race  of  sailors  as  ever  lived — men 
in  whom  courage  and  self-reliance  had  been  developed  to 
a  high  degree  by  the  fact  that  for  years,  with  little  or  no 
protection  from  their  government,  they  had  been  obliged 
to  defend  themselves  in  uncharted  waters  against  Malay 
pirates,  Spanish  buccaneers,  and  Barbary  corsairs,  and  to 
save  themselves  by  flight  from  English  and  French  cruisers. 
It  was  notorious  that  a  crew  of  twenty  of  them  on  an  Amer 
ican  ship,  owing  to  the  mechanical  devices  which  their 
ingenuity  and  resourcefulness  were  constantly  inventing, 
could  do  the  work  more  easily  than  a  crew  of  thirty  English 
sailors  on  a  British  ship  of  the  same  size.  The  damage  they 
inflicted  on  British  commerce  was  enormous. 


126         THE   WAR   OF   1812   AND   ITS   CAUSES 

One  of  the  incidental  results,  finally,  of  the  war  was  the 
annihilation  of  the  Federalists  as  a  party,  in  consequence 
of  the  suspicion  of  treason  and  of  a  conspiracy  to  secede 
from  the  federal  Union  which  the  Republicans  forever  after 
attached  to  those  who  had  taken  part  in  the  Hartford 
Convention  of  1814.  While  there  undoubtedly  was  senti 
ment  in  the  commercial  centres  of  New  England  in  favor 
of  secession,  with  a  disposition  to  seek  the  protection  of 
England,  the  proceedings  of  the  convention  merely  voiced 
the  Federalist  irritation  under  continued  Virginia  domina 
tion  in  the  government,  and  the  feeling  that  the  commer 
cial  interests  of  New  England  were  being  sacrificed  by  this 
domination. 


XII 
INDUSTRIAL  DEVELOPMENT 

THE  period  from  1820  to  1860  was  marked  by  four  im 
portant  aspects  of  the  life  of  the  American  people  which 
will  be  treated  in  this  and  the  three  following  chapters. 
These  aspects  reveal  the  development,  in  a  remarkable 
manner,  of  the  mechanical  ingenuity  and  the  industrial 
activity  of  the  people,  the  expansion  of  American  commerce 
until  it  reached  its  high-water  mark,  the  full  efflorescence 
in  poetry,  fiction,  essays  and  history  of  American  literature, 
and  the  divergence  of  the  North  and  the  South  over  the 
question  of  slavery,  culminating  in  the  Civil  War. 

The  tide  of  migration  from  the  seaboard  states,  especially 
in  the  North,  to  the  rich  lands  in  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi 
valleys,  which  had  been  checked  by  the  War  of  1812,  be 
gan  to  flow  again  as  soon  as  peace  was  made.  So  inade 
quate  were  the  means  of  transportation  and  so  formidable 
was  the  barrier  presented  by  the  Alleghany  Mountains  that 
the  problem  of  connecting  the  East  and  the  West,  for  politi 
cal  as  well  as  for  economic  reasons,  engrossed  the  attention 
of  the  ablest  minds  of  the  day.  Three  solutions  of  the  prob 
lem  were  found — in  the  construction  by  the  federal  govern 
ment  of  the  national  road  from  Cumberland,  Md.,  to  the 
Ohio;  in  the  building  by  the  states,  with  assistance  from 
the  federal  government,  of  turnpikes  over  the  mountains 
and  through  the  gaps,  and  finally  in  the  Erie  Canal  which, 
completed  in  1825,  made  a  water  route  from  the  Hudson 

127 


128  INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT 

to  the  Lakes.  As  fast  as  these  lines  of  communication  were 
opened  they  were  crowded.  The  stage  rates  over  the 
Cumberland  Road  were  five  and  six  dollars  a  hundred 
weight  from  Philadelphia  or  Baltimore  to  the  Ohio,  passen 
gers  as  well  as  freight  being  charged  by  weight.  In  1820 
there  were  fully  three  thousand  wagons  engaged  in  the  busi 
ness  of  transporting  merchandise  between  Philadelphia  and 
Pittsburgh  over  the  turnpikes  which  the  state  had  built 
across  the  mountains.  From  the  outset  the  Erie  Canal 
brought  prosperity  to  the  state  of  New  York,  establishing 
the  commercial  supremacy  of  the  city  of  New  York,  where 
the  value  of  the  real  and  personal  property  rose  from  about 
seventy  million  dollars  in  1820  to  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  millions  in  1830,  and  doubling  the  value  of  lands  and 
farm  products  in  the  western  part  of  the  state. 

With  this  great  artificial  waterway  in  such  successful 
operation  that  the  tolls  in  1830  amounted  to  more  than  a 
million  dollars,  and  in  view  of  the  earlier  demonstration  of 
the  commercial  practicability  as  a  coal-carrier  between  the 
Pennsylvania  mines  and  New  York  City  of  the  Delaware 
and  Hudson  Canal,  it  was  inevitable  that  canals  should 
multiply  rapidly.  From  1830  to  1840  nearly  a  hundred 
million  dollars  were  spent  by  the  states,  with  some  aid  from 
the  federal  government,  on  various  canal  systems,  mainly 
in  New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  including  four  lines  across 
the  Alleghany  Mountains.  Ohio  also  built  a  system  of 
canals  which  became  tributary  to  the  Erie  Canal,  and  many 
years  later  Lake  Michigan  and  the  Illinois  River  were  con 
nected  by  a  canal. 

While  the  plans  for  these  elaborate  systems  of  canals 
were  being  carried  out  no  one  imagined  for  a  moment  that 


130  INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT 

the  locomotive  engine  and  railroads  were  soon  to  revolu 
tionize  transportation.  Yet  the  Erie  Canal  had  been  in 
operation  only  four  years  when  the  first  locomotive  engine, 
of  which  the  Englishman,  George  Stephenson,  had  been 
the  inventor,  was  brought  to  the  United  States  and  served 
as  a  model  for  the  early  American  engines.  The  first  rail 
road,  built  in  1830  and  fifteen  miles  in  length,  connected 
Baltimore  and  Ellicott's  Mills.  The  first  railroad  in  New 
York  state,  built  in  1831,  connected  Albany  and  Schenec- 
tady;  the  first  in  Massachusetts,  built  in  1835,  connected 
Boston  and  Lowell,  and  the  first  in  Kentucky,  built  in  the 
same  year,  connected  Lexington  and  Frankfort.  By  the 
end  of  the  decade  there  were  more  than  twenty-eight  hun 
dred  miles  of  railroad  in  use.  By  1850  this  mileage  had 
increased  to  nine  thousand,  and  by  1860  to  nearly  thirty- 
one  thousand.  Meanwhile  works  for  the  manufacture  of 
locomotive  engines  and  cars  had  been  established  in  Phila 
delphia  and  elsewhere  by  Mathias  Baldwin  and  others, 
and  coal  from  the  Pennsylvania  mines  had  come  into  gen 
eral  use  to  generate  motive  power  for  locomotive  engines 
and  mills. 

As  a  result  of  the  strong  westward  current  of  migration, 
at  first  over  the  turnpikes  and  by  canals,  and  later  by  way 
of  the  railroads,  the  population  of  the  great  states  of  the 
West  and  Southwest  grew  with  marvellous  rapidity.  Ohio, 
which  contained  somewhat  more  than  half  a  million  people 
in  1820,  had  nine  hundred  thousand  in  1830,  a  million  and 
a  half  in  1840  and  two  and  a  third  millions  by  1860.  Indi 
ana  leaped  from  147,000  in  1820  to  686,000  in  1840  and  to 
double  these  figures  in  1860.  In  the  decade  from  1820  to 
1830  Illinois  trebled  her  population  of  fifty-five  thousand. 


PETER  COOPER'S  WORKING   MODEL  FOR  A  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINE, 

"TOM   THUMB." 

First  used  between  Baltimore  and  Silicon's  Mills,  August  28,  1830. 
By  courtesy  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  Company. 


1 32  INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT 

By  1840  there  were  in  the  state  not  far  from  half  a  million 
people;  by  1850  there  were  851,000,  and  by  1860  twice  as 
many — 1,711,000.  Chicago,  which  was  surveyed  as  a  town 
in  1830,  when  there  were  only  twelve  families  in  the  place 
besides  the  garrison,  had  acquired  a  population  of  about 
forty-five  hundred  in  1840.  By  1850  this  number  had 
grown  to  thirty  thousand,  and  by  1860,  when  the  city  had 
become  the  most  important  railroad  centre  in  the  West, 
to  considerably  over  a  hundred  thousand.  The  Southwest 
too  shared  this  remarkable  growth.  St.  Louis,  which  con 
tained  about  forty-six  hundred  people  in  1820,  had  more 
than  sixteen  thousand  in  1840  and  one  hundred  and  sixty 
thousand  in  1860.  The  centre  of  population  meanwhile 
was  moving  westward  at  the  rate  of  from  forty  to  sixty 
miles  in  each  decade,  on  or  near  the  thirty-ninth  parallel  of 
latitude.  In  1820  this  centre  was  just  west  of  the  state 
line  now  separating  Virginia  and  West  Virginia.  In  the 
decade  from  1850  to  1860,  however,  it  moved  out  of  West 
Virginia  and  into  southern  Ohio,  to  a  point  almost  due 
south  of  Columbus. 

In  the  early  part  of  this  period  the  migratory  movement 
was  made  up  almost  wholly  of  Americans  leaving  the  East 
for  the  more  promising  West,  where  land  was  cheap  and 
the  soil  was  rich.  Later,  however,  in  the  'forties  and  'fif 
ties,  there  was  a  large  and  important  admixture  of  foreign 
immigrants  who  went  to  swell  the  human  tide  flowing  across 
the  Alleghanies.  The  quality  of  this  immigration  was  of 
the  best — English,  Scotch,  Irish,  German  and  Scandina 
vian.  The  volume  became  greatest  when  the  famine  in 
Ireland  in  1846  and  the  revolution  of  1848  in  Germany 
drove  hundreds  of  thousands  of  peasants  and  mechanics 


O  to 

O  _g 

<  *» 

O  - 

tt  "5 

<J  To 


i34  INDUSTRIAL  DEVELOPMENT 


across  the  ocean.  In  1831  the  arriving  immigrants  num 
bered  less  than  twenty-three  thousand.  By  1842,  however, 
drawn  by  the  alluring  prospects  which  the  newly-opened 
lands  of  the  West  held  out,  they  numbered  for  the  first 
time  more  than  a  hundred  thousand.  A  few  years  later 
the  stream  became  what  was  for  those  years  a  torrent,  the 
number  arriving  in  1846  being  154,416;  in  1847,  234,968; 
and  in  1850,  310,004.  In  1854  the  high-water  mark  for 
this  period  was  reached — 427,853,  after  which  there  was  a 
recession  which  became  more  marked  during  the  Civil  War. 
In  the  decade  from  1845  to  1855  more  than  a  million  and 
a  quarter  Irish  immigrants  came  to  America.  The  total 
number  of  immigrants  arriving  from  1821  to  1850,  inclusive, 
was  considerably  over  five  millions.  Ninety-five  per  cent 
of  these  millions  of  foreigners  made  homes  for  themselves 
in  the  North  and  in  the  West,  instinctively  avoiding  the 
states  in  which  slave  labor  prevailed.  Knowing  nothing  of 
state  rights  or  sectional  jealousies,  but  recognizing  America 
only  as  the  nation  that  offered  them  political  and  religious 
liberty  and  a  living,  they  naturally  gave  their  support  to 
the  Union  in  the  conflict  that  arose  soon  after  the  large 
majority  of  them  arrived  in  America.  It  remains  only  to 
add  that  the  total  population  of  the  United  States,  which 
was  somewhat  more  than  nine  and  a  half  millions  in  1820, 
had  grown  to  nearly  thirty-one  and  a  half  millions  in  1860. 
These  great  movements  of  population,  with  the  increased 
demand  which  they  created  for  commodities  and  facilities 
of  all  kinds,  were  an  enormous  stimulus  to  the  inventive 
faculty  and  mechanical  ingenuity  of  the  people.  Thus 
gas  began  to  be  manufactured  and  distributed  in  Baltimore 
in  1821  and  was  in  general  use  in  the  larger  cities  by  the  end 


EXTENSION  OF  THE   NATIONAL  DOMAIN     135 

of  the  decade.  The  important  newspapers  began  to  be 
printed  on  cylinder  presses.  Cyrus  Hall  McCormick,  a 
Virginian  who  later  made  Chicago  his  home,  constructed  a 
reaping  machine  in  1831,  the  first  of  a  series  of  inventions 
that  made  farming  on  a  large  scale  possible.  In  1820  the 
total  output  of  anthracite  coal  in  the  Lehigh  Valley  mines 
was  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  tons;  ten  years  later  the 
demand  had  increased  to  such  an  extent  that  one  hundred 
and  seventy-five  thousand  tons  were  mined.  A  decade 
and  a  half  later  two  inventions  were  perfected  which  exerted 
a  wide  influence  on  the  commercial  and  the  domestic  life  of 
the  people — the  telegraph  in  1844  by  Professor  S.  F.  B. 
Morse  and  the  sewing-machine,  a  year  later,  by  Elias  Howe, 
both  of  these  men  being  natives  of  Massachusetts. 

Additions,  wide  in  extent  and  of  incalculable  value,  were 
made  to  the  area  of  the  national  domain  in  this  memorable 
epoch,  and  many  new  states  were  admitted  to  the  federal 
Union.  As  a  result  of  General  Jackson's  successful  cam 
paign  against  the  Seminole  Indians  in  1818,  the  Floridas 
were  purchased  from  Spain  for  five  million  dollars.  The 
revolution  in  1835,  by  whi,ch  the  Texans  won  their  inde 
pendence  from  Mexico,  was  followed  ten  years  later,  under 
the  Polk  administration,  by  war  between  the  United  States 
and  Mexico,  whose  territorial  possessions  to  the  north, 
extensive  in  area,  but  ill-defined  and  poorly  defended,  lay 
across  the  natural  pathway  westward  of  the  restless,  push 
ing  people  of  the  southwestern  states,  and  formed  a  prize 
upon  which  the  slave  power  was  especially  eager  to  lay  its 
hands.  The  American  troops  under  General  Zachary  Tay 
lor  and  General  Winfield  Scott  being  successful  at  every 
point  in  this  war  of  territorial  aggrandizement,  Mexico,  in 


136  INDUSTRIAL  DEVELOPMENT 

making  peace  in  1848,  was  forced  to  cede  to  the  United 
States,  for  a  consideration  of  eighteen  million  dollars,  the 
vast  territory,  half  a  million  square  miles  in  extent,  con 
sisting  of  Nevada,  Utah,  the  greater  part  of  Arizona  and 
the  western  portions  of  Colorado  and  New  Mexico.  Cali 
fornia  was  also  included  in  the  ceded  territory,  although  a 
year  or  two  earlier  the  American  pioneers  in  that  region, 
under  the  leadership  of  Lieutenant  John  C.  Fremont,  who 
was  in  charge  of  a  government  exploring  expedition,  and 
with  the  co-operation  of  one  or  two  vessels  of  the  United 
States  navy,  had  proclaimed  and  had  won  the  independence 
of  California  from  the  Mexican  authorities. 

In  the  same  year  that  peace  was  made,  1848,  gold  was 
discovered  in  California,  and  by  the  end  of  1849  there  were 
fully  a  hundred  thousand  gold-seekers  in  this  new  Eldorado 
—men  who  had  come  overland  by  the  Santa  Fe  and  other 
transcontinental  trails,  across  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  or 
around  Cape  Horn  in  sailing-vessels.  In  the  decade  from 
1850  to  1859  they  and  those  who  followed  them  mined  gold 
to  the  value  of  more  than  fifty  million  dollars.  The  admit 
tance  of  Texas  alone  to  the  federal  Union  added  to  the 
United  States  more  than  the  equivalent  of  the  combined 
areas  of  France,  England,  Scotland  and  Ireland,  Belgium, 
Holland  and  Switzerland — three  hundred  and  seventy 
thousand  square  miles.  And  at  about  the  same  time,  1846, 
the  boundary  of  the  Oregon  country,  which  had  been  jointly 
occupied  by  the  United  States  and  England,  was  defined, 
so  that  by  the  end  of  this  decade  the  limits  of  the  United 
States  proper  were  practically  determined  as  they  exist 
to-day. 

Meanwhile,  in  consequence  of  the  expansion  westward 


THE   TARIFF   AN   EARLY   ISSUE  137 

of  the  population  and  of  the  large  volume  of  foreign  immi 
gration,  new  states  were  rapidly  received  into  the  federal 
Union,  the  balance  of  political  power  being  preserved  by 
the  admittance  of  an  equal  number  of  southern  and  northern 
states.  Louisiana  having  become  a  state  on  the  eve  of  the 
War  of  1812,  half  a  dozen  other  states  qualified  and  were 
admitted  in  the  stirring  years  immediately  following  the 
war — Indiana  in  1816,  Mississippi  in  1817,  Illinois  in  1818, 
Alabama  in  1819,  Maine  in  1820  and  Missouri  in  1821. 
Arkansas  and  Michigan  came  into  the  Union  in  1836  and 
1837  respectively.  In  the  next  decade  a  new  group  of 
states  qualified,  three  of  them  in  consequence  of  the  exten 
sion  of  the  national  boundary — Florida  and  Texas  in  1845 
and  California  in  1850,  while  Iowa,  admitted  in  1846,  and 
Wisconsin,  in  1848,  testified  to  the  rapidity  with  which  the 
northwest  was  being  peopled. 

With  the  remarkable  increase  of  population  in  nearly 
all  parts  of  the  country,  industries  multiplied  and  the  de 
mand  from  the  manufacturers  of  the  North  for  higher  duties 
became  more  and  more  insistent.  The  half-dozen  or  more 
tariff  bills  that  became  laws  between  1816  and  1846  re 
flected,  first,  the  growth,  in  response  to  this  demand,  of  the 
protectionist  idea  until  it  culminated  in  the  act  of  1832  in 
which  the  theory  of  protection  was  elaborated  and  system 
atized  in  a  practical  form;  and,  second,  the  reaction,  as  a 
result  of  the  discontent  and  financial  distress  in  the  South, 
toward  lower  duties,  modified  protection,  and,  finally,  a 
tariff  for  revenue  only,  with  all  forms  of  protection  elimi 
nated.  Andrew  Jackson,  whose  two  terms  of  office  as  Pres 
ident  extended  from  1829  to  1837,  was  the  representative 
of  the  new  Democracy  of  the  agricultural  South,  with  its 


138  INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT 

opposition  to  high  tariffs  and  internal  improvements  at  the 
expense  of  the  nation,  which  formed  the  platform  of  the 
Clay-Adams  wing  of  the  party  in  the  North.  Out  of  this 
divergence  grew  the  modern  Democratic  party  and  the 
Whigs  and  their  successors,  the  Republicans. 

The  old  South,  Virginia,  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas,  had 
not  shared  in  the  prosperity  of  the  North  and  attributed  its 
decline  in  wealth  and  in  influence  to  the  operation  of  the 
protective  tariff.  The  real  causes  were  to  be  found  in  the 
shifting  of  the  centre  of  cotton  culture  from  the  outworn 
fields  of  the  old  South  to  the  richer  uplands  of  the  Gulf 
states;  in  the  loss  of  white  population  due  to  this  south- 
westward  movement,  and  in  the  system  of  plantation  life 
and  of  slave  labor  which  was  the  barrier  that  prevented 
immigrants  from  seeking  homes  in  the  South.  When  the 
Gulf  states,  Alabama,  Mississippi  and  Louisiana,  began  to 
raise  cotton  on  their  fertile  uplands,  the  total  production 
increased  year  by  year  to  such  an  extent  as  to  send  the 
export  price,  sixteen  and  a  half  cents  a  pound  in  1821,  down 
to  nine  cents  in  1830.  Meanwhile  many  additional  mills 
were  building  in  New  England,  the  products  of  whose  cot 
ton  factories  rose  in  value  from  two  and  a  half  million 
dollars  in  1820  to  fifteen  and  a  half  millions  in  1831,  while 
the  value  of  the  woollen  products  increased  in  the  same 
period  from  less  than  one  to  more  than  eleven  million 
dollars. 

The  financial  depression  in  the  South,  which  was  thus 
due  to  special  causes  and  which  embarrassed,  in  their  well- 
earned  retirement,  even  those  leaders  of  the  old  Republican 
party,  Jefferson,  Madison  and  Monroe,  was  followed  in 
1837  by  a  panic  of  general  scope  caused  by  over-speculation 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE        139 

in  government  lands,  by  extravagance,  state  and  national, 
in  canal  and  road  building,  and  by  the  lack  of  any  banking 
system  adequate  to  care  properly  for  the  greatly  increased 
business  of  the  country.  Jackson,  unable  to  use  its  offices 
as  rewards  for  party  services,  had  driven  the  United  States 
Bank  out  of  business  by  withdrawing  from  it  the  govern 
ment  deposits;  and  in  this  emergency  the  imperfectly  or 
ganized  state  banks  undertook  to  finance  the  public  as  well 
as  the  private  enterprises  of  the  day.  When,  however,  the 
government  decided  that  payment  for  government  lands 
must  be  made  in  gold  and  silver,  the  unstable  foundations 
on  which  these  state  banks  rested  crumbled  and  precipi 
tated  a  crash.  It  was  several  years  before  the  country 
worked  its  way  out  of  the  financial  chaos  that  followed. 

By  far  the  most  important  international  incident  of  these 
years  was  the  enunciation  by  President  Monroe  in  1823 
of  the  broad  general  principle,  to  which  later  the  name  of 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  given,  that  the  United  States 
would  regard  as  inimical  to  its  interests  any  armed  inter 
ference  of  a  foreign  power  in  the  political  or  territorial 
affairs  of  a  state  in  North  or  South  America.  This  dec 
laration  became  necessary  because  of  the  fear  lest  the  re 
actionary  Holy  Alliance  formed  by  Russia,  Austria,  and 
Prussia,  might  attempt  to  aid  Spain  in  recovering  the  con 
trol  of  her  revolted  American  colonies.  The  adoption  of 
this  policy  was  a  warning  also  against  further  colonization 
as  well  as  against  any  attempt  that  might  be  contemplated 
to  substitute,  in  this  or  that  instance,  a  monarchical  for  a 
republican  form  of  government.  The  re-enunciation  of 
this  doctrine  of  non-interference  seventy  years  later  by 
President  Cleveland,  in  the  Venezuela  boundary  case,  went 


140  INDUSTRIAL  DEVELOPMENT 

far  to  establish  it  as  the  cardinal  principle  of  the  foreign 
policy  of  the  United  States. 

Although  the  treaty  ending  the  War  of  1812  had  left  in 
the  air  the  question  of  the  impressment  of  American  sea 
men,  there  was  no  further  friction  from  this  cause.  Im 
pressment  was  a  practice  which  became  obsolete  from  the 
moment  when  the  Constitution  poured  her  first  broadside 
into  the  Guerriere. 


XIII 
HIGH  TIDE  OF  AMERICAN  COMMERCE 

THE  remarkable  growth  throughout  the  United  States 
from  1820  to  1860  of  population,  facilities  for  transporta 
tion  and  industries  of  all  varieties  had  its  counterpart  dur 
ing  the  same  period  in  the  phenomenal  development  and 
world-wide  activity  of  American  shipping  interests.  Only 
temporarily  held  in  check  by  the  War  of  1812,  the  daring 
enterprise  of  American  merchants  and  of  American  sea 
men,  which  had  been  so  conspicuously  displayed  from  1800 
to  1 8 10,  sprang  into  life  with  fresh  vigor  as  soon  as  peace 
was  made.  Again  the  shipyards  along  the  New  England 
coast  became  centres  of  active  industry.  So  abundant 
were  the  supplies  of  suitable  timber  that  ships  could  be 
built  in  New  England  at  a  saving  of  fully  one-fifth  over  the 
cost  in  old  England.  So  tough  and  so  well  seasoned  were 
the  woods  which  these  experienced  shipbuilders  used  and 
so  superior  was  their  workmanship  that  many  of  these  ves 
sels  were  in  active  service  twenty  and  even  thirty  years, 
although  the  normal  life  of  a  merchant-vessel  engaged  in 
the  ocean  carrying  trade  was  supposed  to  be  only  fifteen. 
So  able  to  carry  sail  were  these  carefully  and  stoutly  built 
ships  and  barks  and  so  efficient  were  their  sailing  masters 
and  their  smaller  crews  in  getting  the  utmost  speed  out  of 
them  that  they  habitually  made  four  voyages  while  British 
and  Dutch  merchantmen  of  practically  like  tonnage  were 
making  three  between  the  same  ports.  So  high,  indeed, 

141 


142      HIGH  TIDE  OF  AMERICAN  COMMERCE 

was  the  reputation  of  these  vessels  that  in  the  twenty-five 
years  following  the  War  of  1812  no  fewer  than  three 
hundred  and  forty  thousand  tons  of  American-built  ship 
ping  were  sold  to  foreigners — probably  more  than  a  thou 
sand  vessels. 

Only  a  brief  reference  can  be  made  here  to  some  of  the 
more  important  aspects  of  the  wonderfully  varied  maritime 
life,  always  dignified  and  impressive  and  often  tinged  with 
romance  and  picturesqueness,  which  grew  out  of  these  con 
ditions.  The  first  step  in  the  evolutionary  process  was 
the  establishment,  in  1816  and  in  the  years  following,  of 
several  sailing  packet  lines  for  the  carriage,  between  Ameri 
can  and  European  ports,  of  passengers  and  of  high-class 
freights.  These  packets,  all  of  which  were  of  American 
build,  thus  met  the  need  of  a  larger  and  somewhat  faster 
type  of  vessel,  with  better  accommodations  for  passengers 
than  the  merchantmen  of  that  day  could  supply,  and  with 
regular  days  for  sailing.  They  were  built  with  hulls  of 
unusual  strength  and  with  moderate  spars  and  canvas, 
being  thus  especially  adapted  to  meet  the  boisterous 
weather  of  the  north  Atlantic.  The  service  drew  to  its 
ranks  the  best  seamen  of  the  American  merchant  marine, 
who  were  justly  proud  of  their  ships  and  of  their  records, 
the  rivalry  between  the  different  lines  being  keen.  Up  to 
1830  the  packets  were  more  celebrated  for  the  comparative 
comfort  which  they  offered  to  passengers  than  for  their 
speed.  After  that  date,  however,  the  rivalry  of  the  different 
lines  produced  a  faster  type  of  vessel,  approaching  the 
clippers  of  a  later  period. 

These  Yankee  packets  were  the  precursors  of  the  wooden 
side-wheel  transatlantic  steamships  and  were  of  the  highest 


144      HIGH   TIDE   OF   AMERICAN   COMMERCE 

value  in  the  development  of  American  commerce.  Their 
popularity  and  their  prosperity  were  great.  For  years 
they  formed  the  principal  channel  through  which  the 
enormous  stream  of  immigration  flowed  to  America.  One 
vessel  of  the  Black  Ball  packet  line  had  a  record,  during 
her  long  life  of  twenty-nine  years,  of  one  hundred  and 
sixteen  round  passages  between  New  York  and  Liverpool. 
In  that  time,  and  without  the  loss  of  a  seaman,  a  sail  or 
a  spar,  she  had  brought  thirty  thousand  immigrants  to 
America,  no  fewer  than  fifteen  hundred  births  and  two 
hundred  marriages  having  taken  place  among  her  passen 
gers. 

In  this  memorable  decade  from  1821  to  1830  the  annual 
value  of  the  total  American  exports  and  imports,  excluding 
gold  and  silver,  averaged  about  $142,400,000,  and  over 
ninety  per  cent  of  all  this  merchandise  was  carried  in 
American  vessels,  a  record  excelled  only  in  the  year  1810, 
and  then  only  slightly,  at  the  culmination  of  the  almost 
equally  prosperous  epoch  preceding  the  War  of  1812.  It 
was  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the  London  Times,  in 
May,  1827,  sounded  a  note  of  alarm  in  these  words:  "We 
have  closed  the  West  Indies  against  America  from  feelings 
of  commercial  rivalry.  Its  active  seamen  have  already 
engrossed  an  important  branch  of  our  carrying  trade  to 
the  Eastern  Indies.  Her  starred  flag  is  now  conspicuous  on 
every  sea  and  will  soon  defy  our  thunder. " 

Shut  out  by  this  policy  from  trade  with  British  West 
Indian  ports,  American  merchants  had  been  forced  more 
and  more  to  seek  other  and  more  distant  markets  for  their 
wares  and  for  return  cargoes.  Vessels  from  the  port  of 
Salem  were,  as  ever,  the  leaders  in  this  trade  with  Africa, 


NEW  ENGLAND   WHALERS  145 

South  America,  China,  India,  and  the  islands  of  the  Far 
East.  Not  infrequently,  it  must  be  admitted,  their  out 
going  cargoes,  especially  those  for  the  coast  of  Africa,  were 
largely  composed  of  New  England  rum,  gunpowder,  and 
tobacco.  But  they  brought  back  freights  that  filled  the 
air  of  the  old  Puritan  town  with  the  fragrance  of  far- 
distant  lands  and  gave  wealth  and  influence  to  their  own 
ers.  And  this  rich  and  profitable  commerce  was  developed 
and  carried  on  for  years  in  vessels  of  rarely  more  than 
three  hundred  tons. 

Among  the  hardiest  and  most  venturesome  of  these  sea 
men  who  were  carrying  the  " starred  flag"  into  every  sea 
were  the  New  England  whalemen.  From  small  beginnings  in 
1816,  when  only  four  or  five  whaling  vessels  remained  of  the 
large  fleet  of  earlier  years,  the  industry  increased  steadily, 
the  possibility  of  quick  and  big  profits  proving  to  be  highly 
attractive  to  both  capital  and  men.  By  1845  the  tonnage 
of  American  vessels  engaged  in  whaling  had  grown  to  about 
191,000,  figures  that  were  surpassed  only  in  1858  when  the 
tonnage  was  198,594.  The  centres  of  this  important  in 
dustry  were  New  Bedford  and  Nantucket,  and  the  years 
in  which  the  greatest  profits  were  secured  were  from  1830 
to  1840.  Sperm-whales,  the  most  valuable  species,  were 
sought  in  the  temperate  and  tropic  waters  of  the  Atlantic 
and  Pacific.  Right  or  bowhead  whales,  from  which  whale 
bone  and  an  inferior  quality  of  oil  were  procured,  were 
found  in  the  north  and  south  polar  seas.  From  voyages  of 
from  one  to  four  years  the  more  successful  of  these  whalers 
brought  back  catches  varying  in  value  from  forty  to  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand  dollars.  The  risks  were 
so  great,  however,  that  in  their  most  prosperous  years  fully 


146      HIGH  TIDE   OF  AMERICAN   COMMERCE 

one-third  of  the  whalers  made  unprofitable  voyages,  while 
by  1858  only  one  out  of  every  three  of  the  sixty-eight 
whalers  arriving  at  New  Bedford  and  Fairhaven  more  than 
paid  expenses,  these  two  communities  losing  fully  a  million 
dollars  in  this  disastrous  season. 

The  decline  in  the  whaling  industry  had  thus  set  in  many 
years  before  1859  when  petroleum  was  discovered  in  Penn 
sylvania  and  cannot  be  attributed  to  this  cause  or  to  the 
Civil  War.  The  real  causes  were  the  growing  scarcity  of 
whales,  the  greatly  increased  cost  of  fitting  out  whaling 
vessels  and  of  conducting  the  industry,  the  superior  attrac 
tions  which  manufactures  offered  to  capital,  and  the  dete 
rioration  in  the  character  of  the  crews,  ship-owners  being 
obliged  to  accept  Portuguese,  negroes,  and  even  Sandwich 
Islanders,  in  place  of  the  farmers'  sons  from  northern  New 
England  who  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  had  been  a  most 
valuable  source  of  supply. 

By  far  the  most  important  incident  of  this  period,  how 
ever,  was  the  successful  application  of  steam-power  to 
side-wheel,  wooden-hull  vessels  in  the  transatlantic  service. 
Two  English-built  steamships,  one  of  which  crossed  the  At 
lantic  in  fourteen  days,  proved,  in  1838,  the  practicability 
of  this  type  of  vessel  for  this  service  and  prepared  the  way 
for  the  British  ultimately  to  displace  the  Yankee  packet. 
With  the  assurance  of  a  generous  mail  subsidy  from  the 
British  government,  Samuel  Cunard  and  his  associates  built 
four  steamships  of  moderate  size  and  power,  with  wooden 
hulls  and  side  wheels,  which,  in  1840,  began  a  regular  ser 
vice  between  Liverpool  and  Boston. 

From  this  small  beginning  developed  the  subsidized 
British  steamship  lines  which  gradually  extended  in  all 


ATLANTIC  AND   PACIFIC   STEAMSHIPS        147 

directions.  Five  years  passed  before  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  met  this  challenge  by  voting  mail  subsidies 
to  American  steamships.  With  this  stimulus  and  with 
the  further  encouragement  of  another  law  to  the  same  end 
enacted  in  1847,  Edward  K.  Collins  established  a  steamship 
line  between  New  York  and  Liverpool  which  included  four 
fine  wooden,  side-wheel  vessels  of  nearly  three  thousand 
tons  each,  built  from  designs  by  George  Steers,  who  also 
drew  the  plans  from  which  the  famous  schooner-yacht 
America  was  built.  The  screw  propeller,  which  Ericsson, 
a  Swedish  engineer  of  originality  and  ability,  had  invented, 
was  slow  in  coming  into  use,  marine  engineers  and  ship 
builders  believing  for  years  that  paddle-wheels  were  more 
practicable  and  more  powerful  than  propellers.  Ericsson 
came  to  the  United  States  from  England  in  1839,  and  two 
years  later  he  had  prepared  for  the  government  designs  for 
the  Princeton,  the  first  warship  to  have  a  screw  propeller 
below  the  water-line,  out  of  reach  of  the  enemy's  shot. 

In  1851  the  tonnage  of  British  and  American  steamships 
registered  for  the  deep-sea  trade  was  practically  equal— 
65,921  British  and  62,391  American.  A  considerable  por 
tion  of  this  tonnage  lay  in  the  steamships  of  the  Pacific 
Mail  Company.  Beginning  in  1848  this  company  built  a 
splendid  fleet  of  nearly  thirty  vessels  for  the  Panama  and 
California  branches  of  their  business,  which,  after  the  dis 
covery  of  gold  on  the  Pacific  coast,  assumed  huge  propor 
tions  and  became  very  profitable.  These  steamships  also 
had  the  benefit  of  a  substantial  mail  subsidy.  By  1855 
the  tonnage  of  American  steamships  had  grown  from  the 
small  beginning  of  16,068  in  1848  to  its  maximum  point 
prior  to  the  Civil  War,  115,045. 


i48      HIGH   TIDE   OF  AMERICAN   COMMERCE 

This  memorable  year,  however,  1855,  proved  to  be  the 
turning-point  in  the  history  of  the  merchant  marine  of  the 
United  States.  In  that  year  Congress  practically  reversed 
the  policy  as  to  mail  subsidies  which  it  had  adopted  ten 
years  earlier,  and  under  which  the  American  steamship 
lines  for  a  decade  had  held  their  own  very  well  in  competi 
tion  with  the  British  subsidized  lines,  notwithstanding  the 
advantage  of  a  five  years'  start  which  the  latter  had  enjoyed. 
This  radical  change  of  policy,  which  had  the  effect  of  cut 
ting  down  materially  the  mail  subsidy  heretofore  granted  to 
the  Collins  line  and  of  reducing,  though  less  seriously,  that 
of  the  Pacific  Mail  Company,  was  mainly  due  to  the  jealousy 
which  had  developed  in  the  South,  partly  owing  to  the 
agitation  over  the  question  of  slavery,  and  in  the  agricult 
ural  West,  toward  the  shipping  interests  of  the  northern 
seaboard.  To  add  to  its  other  embarrassments,  the  Collins 
line  in  the  same  fateful  year,  1855,  lost  two  of  its  steam 
ships,  the  Arctic  and  the  Pacific.  These  disasters  not  only 
crippled  the  line  severely,  but,  taken  with  the  partial  with 
drawal  of  government  aid  and  the  attacks  in  Congress  on 
American  shipping  interests,  discouraged  the  building  of 
new  vessels  of  this  type.  In  three  years  the  registered 
tonnage  of  American  steamships  fell  to  78,027. 

In  1855  there  were  registered  the  enormous  total  of 
2,348,358  tons  of  American  deep-sea  shipping,  and  so  great 
was  the  demand  for  vessels  that  more  than  five  hundred 
of  different  types,  ships,  barks  and  brigs,  all  designed  for 
the  ocean  carrying  trade,  were  launched  from  American 
yards.  Only  once  later,  in  1860,  were  these  tonnage  figures 
surpassed  and  then  only  slightly.  The  tonnage  had  more 
than  doubled  since  1846  when  it  was  943,307.  And  in  the 


YANKEE   CLIPPERS   AND   THEIR   RECORDS    149 

five  years  from  1851  to  1855  inclusive  one  hundred  and 
seventy  thousand  tons  of  American-built  vessels  were  sold 
to  English  and  other  foreign  buyers. 

This  rapid  growth  was  due  less  to  the  wooden-hull  steam 
ships  that  were  built  in  the  yards  along  the  East  River  at 
New  York  than  to  the  great  fleet  of  clippers  which  American 
merchants  and  American  ship-builders  constructed  in  Bos 
ton,  New  York  and  Baltimore  in  their  endeavor  to  hold  the 
ocean  carrying  trade  and  to  increase  it,  even  in  competition 
with  the  subsidized  lines  of  British  steamships.  These 
great  vessels,  one  of  which  in  the  yards  of  the  famous 
Boston  builder,  Donald  McKay,  was  the  inspiration  for 
Longfellow's  poem,  "The  Building  of  the  Ship,"  varied  in 
tonnage  from  a  thousand  to  as  high  as  twenty-four  hundred. 
In  power,  beauty  and  speed  they  represented  the  highest 
point  ever  reached  by  the  designers  and  builders  of  mer 
chant  vessels.  The  California  trade,  which  reached  huge 
proportions  almost  at  a  bound  in  1849  and  ^So,  and  which 
was  restricted,  under  the  coastwise  law  passed  by  Congress 
in  1817,  to  vessels  of  American  registry,  gave  a  mighty 
impetus  for  a  few  years  to  the  building  of  this  type  of 
ship.  The  war  in  the  Crimea  in  1854  gave  employment  to 
many  of  these  Yankee  clippers  as  transports  and  supply 
ships.  They  became  immediately  also  an  influential  fac 
tor  in  the  commerce  between  the  United  States  and  the  Far 
East. 

Some  of  the  record  runs  which  these  powerful  and  beau 
tiful  ships  made  in  the  hands  of  their  bold  and  skilful  Yan 
kee  crews  seem  incredible  :  fourteen  days,  for  example, 
from  New  York  to  Portsmouth,  England,  where  the  clip 
per  Palestine  landed  her  passengers  ahead  of  the  Cunard 


1 50      HIGH  TIDE  OF  AMERICAN  COMMERCE 

steamship  which  had  sailed  on  the  same  day;  ninety  days 
from  New  York  to  San  Francisco,  on  one  of  which  the 
clipper  Flying  Cloud  made  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
four  miles;  sixty- three  days  from  Melbourne  to  Liverpool; 
eighty-four  days  from  Canton  to  New  York;  and  ninety- 
six  days  from  Manila  to  Salem,  were  some  of  the  most 
celebrated  runs  of  these  famous  Yankee  clippers. 

The  chief  sources  of  the  export  wealth  of  the  United 
States  in  these  years  when  its  ships  were  on  the  crest  of  the 
wave  of  prosperity  were  agricultural.  During  the  ten  years 
from  1851  to  1860  the  products  of  American  farms  and 
plantations — wheat,  flour,  rice,  hops,  apples,  corn  and 
cornmeal,  tobacco,  cotton,  potatoes,  sugar  raw  and  refined, 
cheese,  cattle  and  beef  and  pork  products — constituted  on 
the  average  about  eighty-two  per  cent  of  all  the  exports 
from  the  United  States.  The  value  of  these  agricultural 
exports  increased  meanwhile  from  nearly  $147,000,000  in 
1851  to  more  than  $261,000,000  in  1860.  In  the  larger 
view  of  this  commercial  epoch  the  total  American  exports 
to  Europe  grew  in  value  from  about  $36,000,000  in  1821  to 
nearly  $250,000,000  in  1860,  and,  to  all  other  countries, 
from  $19,000,000  to  $84,000,000  in  the  same  interval. 
These  exports  were,  of  course,  paid  for  by  the  imports  of 
hardware,  silks,  oils,  wines,  teas,  coffees,  spices,  etc.,  to 
the  United  States.  At  the  outset,  in  1821,  the  figures 
balanced  almost  evenly.  In  1860,  however,  the  imports 
exceeded  the  exports  in  value  by  about  $20,000,000. 

The  prosperity  which  the  American  merchant  marine  en 
joyed  between  1820  and  1860  followed  the  adoption  by  the 
government  in  1815  of  the  policy  of  reciprocity  in  shipping 
— a  policy  that  has  not  been  deviated  from  since  that  date. 


PH 

.    O 
S     S 


~    I 
S| 

w  cB 


i-l     rt 
O    ^ 


1 52      HIGH  TIDE  OF  AMERICAN  COMMERCE 

In  the  early  years  of  the  nation's  life  and  for  a  brief  period 
after  1815,  discriminating  duties  favoring  American  ves 
sels  were  in  force.  These  duties  were  laid,  however,  in  re 
taliation  for  similar  duties  exacted  by  other  nations  and 
were  justifiable  for  this  purpose.  Discrimination,  however, 
as  a  means  of  building  up  a  merchant  marine  is  an  ac 
knowledged  failure  and  has  everywhere  been  abandoned 
in  favor  of  reciprocity.  The  percentage  of  American  mer 
chandise  carried  in  the  foreign  trade  of  American  ships  fell 
off  somewhat,  it  is  true,  in  the  years  from  1831  to  1860. 
The  evidence,  however,  of  the  benefits  of  the  policy  of 
reciprocity,  and  of  the  activity  and  energy  of  American 
shipping  interests,  was  to  be  found  in  the  constantly  in 
creasing  tonnage  of  ocean-going  vessels  flying  the  United 
States  flag,  a  large  percentage  of  which  were  engaged  in 
the  carrying  trade  between  foreign  countries,  and  rarely 
entered  or  cleared  from  an  American  port.  Thus  in  the 
forty  years  from  1820  to  1860  the  tonnage  of  United  States 
shipping  registered  for  the  foreign  trade  increased  fourfold, 
while  that  of  the  entire  British  Empire  only  doubled. 

The  decline  in  American  shipping  was  due  to  various 
causes:  to  the  virtual  abandonment  by  Congress  in  1855 
of  the  policy  of  subsidies;  to  the  competition  of  cheaply- 
built  foreign  iron  steamships,  which  after  1843  gradually 
displaced  the  wooden  ships,  barks  and  brigs,  in  the  build 
ing  and  sailing  of  which  Americans  had  been  supreme;  to 
the  effects  of  the  Civil  War;  to  the  existence  of  the  law 
passed  in  1792  prohibiting  the  granting  of  American  regis 
try  to  foreign-built  ships;  and,  finally,  to  broad  economic 
causes  operating  to  diminish  the  interest  of  the  American 
people  in  the  ocean  carrying  trade.  With  half  a  continent 


OUTLOOK   FOR  THE  MERCHANT  MARINE    153 

to  conquer,  with  forests  to  fell  and  farms  to  clear  and  to 
cultivate,  with  cities  to  build  and  railways  to  construct, 
with  exhaustless  mineral  riches  awaiting  the  miner,  and 
with  manufactures  to  create  in  order  to  supply  the  needs  of 
their  own  millions,  it  was  not  unnatural  that  as  the  years 
passed  a  greater  and  a  greater  share  of  the  energy  and  of 
the  capital  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  should  be  di 
verted  from  the  high  seas  to  these  inland  sources  of  wealth 
lying  so  invitingly  before  them. 

If  the  experience  of  the  most  enlightened  nations  which 
have  developed  their  shipping  to  a  high  point  is  to  be  ac 
cepted  as  a  guide,  the  American  merchant  marine  can  be 
revived  only  by  a  policy,  under  reciprocity,  combining  sub 
sidies  for  the  encouragement  of  shipbuilding,  the  importa 
tion,  free  of  duty,  of  all  materials  for  the  construction  and 
unrestricted  use  of  steamships,  and  free  ships,  for  the  pri 
mary  political  advantage  of  displaying  the  American  flag 
in  foreign  ports.  The  experts  seem  to  be  agreed  that,  so 
far  as  the  foreign  carrying  trade  is  concerned,  the  advan 
tages  to  be  derived  from  free  ships,  under  the  repeal  of  the 
law  of  1792,  would  be  mainly  political  rather  than  economic, 
the  increased  expense  of  maintenance  under  the  American 
flag  more  than  neutralizing  the  saving  in  the  initial  cost  of 
the  foreign-built  vessel. 

The  first  step  toward  free  materials  for  shipbuilding  was 
taken  by  Congress  in  1872.  The  advance  in  the  same 
direction  since  then  has  been  constant,  until  at  the  present 
time,  under  the  Payne- Aldrich  tariff  of  1909,  all  materials 
for  the  construction  of  steamships  or  sailing-vessels  are 
imported  free  of  duty,  with  the  single  condition  that. ves 
sels  so  constructed  in  whole  or  in  part  shall  not  engage  in 


154      HIGH  TIDE   OF  AMERICAN   COMMERCE 

the  coastwise  trade  of  the  United  States  for  more  than  six 
months  in  the  year.  When  this  single  restriction  is  re 
moved,  absolute  free  trade  in  all  the  materials  for  ship 
building  will  have  been  established. 


XIV 

GOLDEN  AGE  OF  AMERICAN  LETTERS 

THE  years  from  1820  to  1860  proved  to  be  the  golden  age 
of  American  letters,  as  well  as  a  period  of  remarkable  indus 
trial  energy  and  of  extraordinary  commercial  activity.  Al 
though  in  two  wars  the  American  people  had  won  first  their 
political  and  later  their  commercial  independence  from 
Great  Britain,  even  their  best  educated  men  continued 
to  show  in  intellectual  matters  a  deference  to  English 
opinion  and  a  sensitiveness  to  English  criticism  which 
were  the  unmistakable  signs  of  national  youth  and  inex 
perience.  That  an  American  could  write  anything  in 
prose  or  verse  above  the  level  of  mediocrity  was  wellnigh 
unthinkable. 

It  was  entirely  consistent  with  this  provincial  state  of 
mind  for  the  editors  of  The  North  American  Review,  newly 
established  in  Boston,  to  suspect  at  first  that  the  lines  called 
"  Thanatopsis, "  which  young  Bryant's  father  left  with 
them  one  day,  early  in  the  summer  of  1817,  were  of  English 
origin,  for  it  was  incredible  to  them  that  any  American 
-  could  have  written  such  a  poem.  The  same  lack  of  self- 
confidence  was  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Cooper's  first  novel, 
Precaution,  which  grew  out  of  his  determination  to  write 
a  better  story  of  English  life  than  the  English  novel  which 
he  then  chanced  to  be  reading.  For,  in  order  to  win  for 
the  book  the  widest  possible  audience  and  at  the  same 
time  to  disarm  the  reviewers,  Cooper  gave  to  the  novel  not 

155 


156       GOLDEN  AGE   OF  AMERICAN  LETTERS 

only  an  English  subject  but  the  pretense  of  English  author 
ship.  Fifteen  years  later  Poe  was  trying,  in  The  Southern 
Literary  Messenger,  of  which  he  was  the  editor,  to  check  the 
tendency  to  go  to  the  other  extreme  of  patriotic  and  indis 
criminate  praise  for  every  American  literary  production 
simply  because  it  was  American — a  tendency  which  afforded 
even  clearer  proof  of  the  national  inexperience  than  was 
indicated  by  the  inability  to  judge  the  value  of  a  book 
until  the  English  stamp  of  approval  or  disapproval  had 
been  placed  upon  it. 

The  truth  was  that  only  time,  with  growth  and  ex 
perience,  could  create  a  national  self-confidence  and  an 
indifference  to  foreign  opinion  in  literary  affairs  which 
should  operate  unconsciously.  The  Civil  War  carried  the 
nation  a  long  way  toward  this  goal,  but  the  war  with 
Spain  had  to  be  fought  before  it  was  made  plain  to  every 
one  that  at  last  the  goal  had  been  reached. 

Many  stimulating  influences  were  at  work,  especially  in 
New  England  in  these  early  years,  urging  men's  minds 
toward  literary  expression.  Scott  and  Byron  were  in  the 
full  exercise  of  their  great  powers,  and  new  novels  and 
poems  by  them  were  awaited  with  a  curiosity  and  read 
with  an  avidity  which  would  be  incomprehensible  to  the 
present  book-surfeited  generation.  Men  of  literary  taste 
like  Irving  were  deeply  affected  by  European  travel  and 
by  contact  with  scenes  "rich,"  as  he  himself  notes,  "in 
storied  and  poetical  association."  Scholars  like  Ticknor, 
Everett  and  Bancroft,  who  had  passed  several  years  in 
Europe  and  especially  in  Germany,  where  Goethe  was  the 
commanding  figure  in  the  romantic  movement  of  the  time, 
on  returning  and  beginning  the  teaching  of  Greek,  French, 


IRVING  AND   COOPER  157 

Spanish  or  Belles  Lettres,  set  in  motion  powerful  currents 
of  new  ideas  or  diverted  old  ideas  into  new  channels.  Under 
the  inspiring  leadership  of  Channing  Unitarianism  was  dis 
placing  Calvinism  over  a  considerable  area,  especially  in 
New  England,  "substituting  the  doctrine  of  hope  for  the 
dogma  of  dread. "  The  way  was  thus  preparing  for  Tran 
scendentalism,  which  was  to  make  use  of  all  the  wisdom 
attainable  by  its  disciples  in  the  effort,  ardent  rather  than 
well  considered,  to  formulate  a  new  philosophy  of  idealism. 

The  fiction  of  this  epoch,  which  may  be  said  to  have  begun 
with  the  appearance,  in  1819,  of  "Rip  Van  Winkle"  and 
"The  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow"  in  Irving's  Sketch-Book, 
and  to  have  reached  its  culmination  in  1850  in  Hawthorne's 
masterpiece,  The  Scarlet  Letter,  including  in  the  interval 
the  novels  of  Cooper  and  the  tales  of  Poe,  possessed  great 
variety  both  of  theme  and  of  treatment.  Irving  had  pub 
lished  in  1809  his  Knickerbocker  History  of  New  York,  the 
youthful  vivacity  and  exuberant  humor  of  which  remain 
fresh  to-day,  after  more  than  a  century  of  life.  It  was,  how 
ever,  the  favor  with  which  his  Sketch-Book  and  Bracebridge 
Hall  were  received,  in  England  as  well  as  in  his  native 
land,  that  determined  his  career,  he  being  thus  the  first 
American  author  to  whom  the  highly-prized  foreign  recog 
nition  was  accorded.  The  splendor  and  romance  of  old 
Spain  had  an  even  greater  attraction  for  him  than  historic 
and  rural  England,  and  found  expression  in  his  Moorish 
Chronicles,  his  Alhambra  and  in  his  biographies  of  Mahomet 
and  Columbus,  revealing  to  the  hungry  American  imagina 
tion  a  world  of  new  and  undreamed-of  wonder  and  beauty. 

Cooper,  after  his  first  timid  venture  in  Precaution,  turned, 
under  the  inspiration  of  Scott's  novels,  to  American  his- 


158       GOLDEN  AGE  OF  AMERICAN  LETTERS 

torical  and  romantic  subjects  with  which  he  was  familiar, 
producing  rapidly  first  the  Revolutionary  story  The  Spy 
and  then  The  Pioneers  and  The  Pilot,  his  motive  in  the  last 
named  being  frankly  to  write  a  story  which  should  be  truer 
to  the  real  life  of  the  sea,  on  which  he  had  had  abundant 
experience  both  in  the  merchant  service  and  in  the  navy, 
than  was  Scott's  Pirate.  With  these  and  the  other  novels 
which  he  published  in  the  following  decade,  and  especially 
with  the  Leather-Stocking  tales,  he  captured  the  reading 
public  not  only  of  his  own  country  but  of  England  and  the 
continent  of  Europe  as  well.  To  foreign  readers  he  opened 
the  door  to  a  new  and  fascinating  world  of  men,  manners, 
customs  and  scenery,  and  no  American  novelist,  save  per 
haps  Mrs.  Stowe,  has  been  so  widely  translated  or  so  eagerly 
read.  His  industry,  moreover,  was  prodigious,  the  list  of 
his  publications  in  the  appendix  to  Professor  Lounsbury's 
life  including  no  fewer  than  seventy-one  titles. 

Aside  from  his  novels,  of  which  there  are  more  than 
thirty,  Cooper's  most  important  work  was  his  History  of 
the  United  States  Navy.  No  little  historical  value,  how 
ever,  attaches  to  the  novels  themselves.  Colonel  Roose 
velt  in  his  Naval  War  of  1812  refers  to  Miles  Walling  ford, 
Home  as  Found  and  The  Pilot  as  giving  a  far  better  idea  of 
the  American  seamen  of  the  period  than  that  to  be  got  from 
any  history.  Despite  the  defects  of  his  style  which  were 
largely  due  to  the  speed  with  which  he  produced  book  after 
book,  he  succeeded  in  holding  the  interest  of  his  readers, 
setting  against  the  vivid  background  of  the  forests,  lakes, 
and  hills  of  his  native  land  which  he  knew  so  well,  and  of 
the  sea  with  the  varying  moods  of  which  he  was  equally 
familiar,  a  group  of  original  characters — Natty  Bumppo, 


POE'S   CHARACTERS   AND   TECHNIQUE        159 

Long  Tom  Coffin,  Uncas,  Harvey  Birch,  etc. — so  individual, 
so  racy  and  of  such  universal  human  appeal  through  the 
manly  virtues  which  their  actions  reveal,  that  their  perma 
nent  place  in  American  literature  seems  to  be  assured. 
"He  knew  men,"  says  Mr.  Brownell  in  his  American 
Prose  Masters,  "as  Lincoln  knew  them — which  is  to  say, 
very  differently  from  Dumas  and  Stevenson."  Patriotic, 
independent,  courageous,  a  lover  of  truth,  his  weaknesses 
were  those  of  temper,  not  of  character. 

No  sharper  contrast  could  be  imagined  than  that  pre 
sented  by  the  solid  reality,  on  the  one  hand,  of  Cooper's 
backgrounds  and  characters,  even  his  somewhat  idealized 
savages,  and  the  essential  unreality,  on  the  other  of  the 
personages  and  scenes  in  the  tales  which  Poe  produced  in 
the  course  of  his  brief  and  stormy  career.  These  began  with 
"A  MS.  Found  in  a  Bottle,"  for  which,  in  1833,  he  re 
ceived  a  prize  of  one  hundred  dollars  from  The  Saturday 
Visitor,  of  Baltimore.  From  this  time  on  his  stories  were 
published  in  various  periodicals  and  newspapers,  "The 
Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue,"  which  appeared  in  1841, 
establishing  on  a  firm  basis  his  popularity,  which  has  never 
waned,  in  Paris.  These  tales,  some  of  them,  like  "The 
Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher, "  purely  imaginative,  and  others, 
like  the  balloon  hoax,  the  product  of  the  author's  excur 
sions  into  popular  science,  possessed  an  individuality,  a 
quality,  an  atmosphere,  a  mood  which  were  peculiar  to 
their  author  and  new  to  literature.  They  revealed  Poe's 
mastery  of  technique,  being  polished  to  an  exquisite  finish. 
They  gave  to  the  short  story,  which  had  been  introduced 
by  Irving,  a  new  and  alluring  form  which  had  its  effect  upon 
European  as  well  as  upon  native  literature.  By  them  their 


160       GOLDEN  AGE   OF   AMERICAN  LETTERS 

author,  proud,  solitary,  self-indulgent,  won  a  unique  place 
in  American  letters.  Through  them  his  constant  effort 
was  to  mystify,  to  make  the  false  appear  to  be  the  true,  to 
produce  theatrical  effects  and  to  create  illusions  which  were 
sufficiently  plausible  to  blind  the  reader,  temporarily  at 
least,  to  their  improbability,  even  impossibility.  And  to 
this  task  he  brought  an  eccentrically  equipped  mind,  largely 
self-trained,  and  a  veritable  genius  for  literary  form. 

In  comparison  with  Poe,  Hawthorne's  powers  were  slow 
in  maturing.  Graduated  from  Bowdoin  in  1825,  he  re 
turned  to  his  mother's  home  in  Salem  where  in  solitude  he 
passed  years,  meditating,  brooding,  writing,  getting  a  short 
story  published  from  time  to  time,  until  in  1837  tne  nrst 
series  of  his  Twice-Told  Tales  was  brought  out  in  book  form, 
the  second  series  not  appearing  until  1845.  Marriage,  life 
in  Concord,  a  brief  sojourn  with  the  Brook  Farm  com 
munity  and,  above  all,  contact  with  the  world  of  reality 
during  the  three  years  from  1846  to  1849  while  he  was  sur 
veyor  in  the  Salem  Custom  House,  gave  Hawthorne  the 
experience  necessary  to  qualify  him  for  his  highest  achieve 
ment  and  to  spur  him  to  his  utmost  endeavor.  In  the  next 
few  years  he  published  his  most  characteristic  books—  The 
Scarlet  Letter,  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  and  The  Blithe- 
dale  Romance,  the  first  two  of  which  in  particular  testified 
to  the  strength  of  the  Puritan  strain  of  blood  in  his  veins. 
The  theme  that  recurs  again  and  again  in  his  writings  of 
the  inevitable  consequences  of  hereditary  sin  came  to  him 
direct  from  his  stern,  even  cruel,  Puritan  ancestry.  He 
brought  this  idea  to  its  highest  development  in  The  Scarlet 
Letter,  the  characters  in  which  are  at  the  same  time  the 
most  real  of  all  of  his  creations.  Like  Poe  he  gave  atmos- 


DANA,   MRS.   STOWE   AND   BRYANT  161 

phere  and  color  to  his  slightest  production,  imparting  to  it 
an  individual  quality  both  of  substance  and  of  form  in 
which  lies  its  greatest  charm. 

No  review,  however  brief,  of  the  fiction  of  this  period 
would  be  complete  which  failed  at  least  to  mention  two 
remarkable  books  which  grew  directly  out  of  very  different 
phases  of  the  life  of  the  American  people — Dana's  narra 
tive  of  his  Two  Years  before  the  Mast,  published  in  1841,  a 
classic  of  the  sea  as  the  New  England  sailors  followed  it 
seventy-five  years  ago,  and  Mrs.  Stowe's  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,  which  was  published  in  March,  1852,  and  which  sold 
more  than  three  hundred  thousand  copies  within  the 
twelvemonth.  Mrs.  Stowe's  famous  story  was  forthwith 
translated  into  many  foreign  tongues.  The  British  Mu 
seum  contains  copies  of  the  novel  in  a  score  of  different 
European  languages,  and  these  represent  only  half  the 
tongues  into  which  it  has  been  translated.  No  book  ever 
published  in  the  United  States,  it  is  safe  to  say,  has  had  the 
world-wide  audience  that  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  won  for  itself. 

The  poetry  of  this  period  began  with  Bryant's  "Thana- 
topsis, "  which  Swinburne-,  writing  to  Stedman  many  years 
later,  characterized  as  the  most  august  meditation  of  a 
solitary  philosopher,  but  in  which  he  failed  to  find  uthe 
echo  of  a  single  note  of  song,"  and  ended  with  the  gay  and 
witty  society  verse  and  college  anniversary  productions  in 
which,  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  scale,  the  emancipated 
Puritan  spirit  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  found  joyous 
expression.  Bryant,  although  born  in  western  Massachu 
setts  and  inheriting  Puritan  traditions,  removed  to  New 
York  City  and  became  a  journalist,  his  poetical  reputation 
resting  upon  his  first  thin  volume  which  contained  the 


162       GOLDEN  AGE  OF  AMERICAN  LETTERS 

lines  "To  a  Waterfowl"  as  well  as  his  "Thanatopsis. "  He 
is  thus  usually  classed  with  the  Knickerbocker  school  of 
Irving,  Cooper  and  Poe,  rather  than  with  the  later  New 
Englanders. 

The  pulse,  that  is,  the  rhythm,  of  music  which  Swin 
burne  found  wanting  in  Bryant,  was  the  distinguishing 
note  of  the  poems  which  Poe  began  to  publish  with  Tamer 
lane  in  1827  and  which  he  contributed  to  various  periodi 
cals  or  occasionally  issued  in  book  form  throughout  his  life. 
His  verse,  with  its  recurring  cadences  and  its  haunting 
melody,  wellnigh  perfect  technically,  and  pitched  in  the 
invariable  minor  key  from  which  there  was  no  modulation, 
illustrated  repeatedly  his  philosophy  of  the  art  of  poetry, 
the  central  idea  of  which  was  that  beauty,  and  beauty  alone, 
was  the  one  quality  to  be  attained,  truth  from  his  point  of 
view  being  negligible. 

The  most  characteristic  product  of  Lowell's  poetic  talent 
is  to  be  found  in  The  Biglow  Papers,  the  publication  of  the 
first  series  of  which  was  begun  in  The  Boston  Courier  in  1846. 
For  the  first  time  the  wit  and  learning  of  a  widely  read 
scholar,  who  was  also  a  man  of  the  world  and  whose  knowl 
edge  of  human  nature  was  profound,  were  brought  to  the 
service  of  the  anti-slavery  cause  in  verse  set  in  the  Yankee 
dialect,  which  subjected  to  the  keenest  satire  and  the  most 
merciless  ridicule  the  attitude  and  pretensions  of  the  slave 
power,  especially  with  reference  to  the  war  with  Mexico, 
and  the  cant  and  hypocrisy  of  its  northern  sympathizers. 
Lowell's  discriminating  and  almost  equally  characteristic 
Fable  for  Critics,  following  these  Biglow  Papers  in  1848, 
emphasized  his  intellectual  versatility  and  his  general 
cleverness  as  a  man  of  letters.  His  "  Commemoration 


I 

1 

1 


1-1  ^ 

O    5 


SI 


w  ^ 

H    2 


Q  « 
c 

H  £ 

Z  ^ 

W  S 

a  - 

W  P 

«  I 


1 64       GOLDEN  AGE   OF  AMERICAN  LETTERS 

Ode,"  which  is  universally  regarded  as  his  highest  poetic 
achievement,  belongs  of  course  to  the  period  following  the 
Civil  War. 

Meanwhile  two  other  New  England  poets,  Longfellow 
and  Whittier,  had  made  reputations  for  themselves  in  very 
different  fields.  A  native  of  Portland,  Me.,  and,  like  Haw 
thorne,  a  graduate  of  Bowdoin,  Longfellow,  after  a  con 
siderable  residence  abroad,  the  effect  of  which  showed  it 
self  throughout  his  career  as  a  poet,  succeeded  Ticknor  as 
Smith  Professor  of  French,  Spanish  and  Belles  Lettres  at 
Harvard  in  1836,  and  three  years  later  published  his  first 
volume  of  verse,  Voices  of  the  Night.  He  was  a  student 
who  found  the  inspiration  for  his  poems  in  the  historic  and 
romantic  legends  of  his  own  land  and  of  foreign  countries. 
Lost  in  these  old  records  and  in  framing  the  pictures  which 
they  suggested  to  his  fancy,  he  was  comparatively  un 
affected  by  either  the  Transcendentalist  or  anti-slavery 
movement.  His  poems,  although  deficient  in  passion  and 
fire,  have  a  simplicity,  sincerity  and  grace  which  have 
endeared  them  to  a  wide  popular  audience  not  only  in 
America  but  in  England. 

Whittier  was  a  reformer  before  he  was  a  poet  and  natu 
rally  directed  his  literary  energies  largely  to  the  advance 
ment  of  the  anti-slavery  cause.  His  first  volume  of  verse, 
New  England  Legends,  appeared  in  1831,  and  the  most 
popular  of  his  longer  poems,  Snow-Bound,  in  1862.  Born 
in  Haverhill,  Mass.,  in  1807,  he  was  a  thorough  Quaker, 
through  whose  verse,  nevertheless,  the  nobler  traits  of  the 
Puritan  character,  with  which  he  was  well  acquainted  by 
observation  and  tradition,  found  full  expression.  He  early 
attached  himself  to  the  anti-slavery  movement  under  the 


HISTORICAL  WRITERS   OF  DISTINCTION      165 

leadership  of  Garrison,  and  did  much  by  his  fervent  verse 
to  keep  the  agitation  alive  and  to  win  converts  to  the  cause. 

Finally,  the  poems  of  Emerson  have  been  happily  char 
acterized  by  Mr.  Brownell  in  his  American  Prose  Masters 
as  his  communion  with  himself,  while  his  essays  were  his 
communication  to  the  world. 

Of  the  writers  of  history  in  this  era,  four  stand  out  with 
especial  distinctness— Bancroft,  Prescott,  Motley  and  Park- 
man,  all  of  them  graduates  of  Harvard.  Bancroft,  having 
acquired  a  decided  taste  for  historical  studies  in  Germany, 
began  his  History  of  the  United  States  soon  after  his  return 
to  America,  and  published  the  first  volume  in  1834,  leaving 
it  unfinished  at  his  death  in  1891.  The  work  contains  a 
great  quantity  of  first-hand  information,  the  fruit  of  the 
author's  painstaking  and  laborious  collection  of  original 
materials.  In  politics  Bancroft's  sympathies  were  with 
the  anti-Federalist  and  Democratic  parties. 

Gibbon's  autobiography  was  one  of  the  influences  which 
led  Prescott  to  devote  his  life  to  historical  work,  seriously 
handicapped  as  he  was  by  partial  blindness.  His  studies, 
under  the  guidance  of  his  friend  Ticknor,  in  Spanish  lit 
erature,  and  the  neglect  of  Spanish  history  by  European 
writers,  were  other  influences  that  determined  his  choice  of 
subject.  In  1837  ne  was  able  to  publish  his  History  of 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  and  the  immediate  recognition  of 
the  importance  of  the  work  by  European  scholars  led  to 
the  appearance  of  Spanish,  French,  German,  Italian  and 
even  Russian  translations.  Thus  encouraged  Prescott  wrote 
and  in  time  published  his  Conquest  of  Mexico  and  Conquest 
of  Peru,  the  captivating  style  of  all  of  his  books  winning  for 
them  a  large  popular  as  well  as  a  scholarly  audience.  His 


1 66       GOLDEN  AGE   OF  AMERICAN  LETTERS 

death  in  1859  left  unfinished  what  would  probably  have  been 
his  greatest  work,  the  History  of  the  Reign  of  Philip  II,  King 
of  Spain. 

Meanwhile  the  Dutch,  of  whom  Prescott's  heroes,  Charles 
V  and  Philip  II,  had  been  the  chief  oppressors,  gave  Motley 
his  theme  for  his  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  which  was  not 
published,  however,  until  1856,  when  the  author  was  past 
forty.  The  researches  which  formed  the  basis  of  this  work 
and  of  the  History  of  the  United  Netherlands  which  followed 
it,  together  with  the  vivid  style  in  which  they  were  written, 
were  accepted  as  further  proof  both  of  the  soundness  of 
American  historical  scholarship  and  of  the  attractiveness 
to  American  writers  of  the  heroic  as  well  as  the  romantic 
aspects  of  European  history.  From  the  point  of  view, 
however,  of  modern  historical  criticism,  and  in  the  light  of 
later  discoveries,  Motley's  writings  would  probably  be  char 
acterized  as  brilliant  rather  than  as  altogether  sound. 

Parkman  chose  the  same  path  with  an  American  back 
ground,  after  he  had  published  his  California  and  Oregon 
Trail  in  1849  an(l  m's  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac  in  1851,  finding 
in  the  struggle  between  the  French  and  the  English  for  the 
possession  of  the  North  American  continent  a  subject  full 
of  heroic  achievement  and  of  romantic  color  admirably 
adapted  to  his  taste  and  to  his  graphic,  virile  style.  The 
more  important  of  the  volumes  in  this  scheme  appeared 
subsequent  to  the  Civil  War. 

In  the  field  of  essays  the  decade  from  1850  to  1860  was 
noteworthy.  The  shrewd  and  witty  breakfast-table  phi 
losophy  of  Dr.  Holmes  gave  piquancy  to  the  pages  of  The 
Atlantic  Monthly,  the  publication  of  which  was  begun  in 
1857  under  the  editorship  of  Lowell.  Two  years  earlier 


1 68       GOLDEN  AGE   OF  AMERICAN  LETTERS 

Lowell  had  succeeded  Longfellow  in  the  Smith  Professor 
ship  at  Harvard,  having  by  foreign  residence  and  study 
laid  the  foundation  for  the  scholarship  in  the  Romance 
languages  which  was  to  be  fully  revealed  some  years  later 
in  his  brilliant,  if  somewhat  discursive  and  inconclusive, 
essays  in  Among  My  Books. 

Of  all  the  literary  productions,  however,  of  this  epoch, 
the  essays  of  Emerson  seem,  through  their  broad  scope  and 
their  universal  human  interest,  to  possess  the  element  of 
permanent  value  to  a  greater  degree  than 'the  writings  of 
any  other  American  author.  In  their  moral  elevation  as 
well  as  in  their  intellectual  seriousness  the  lectures  delivered 
in  the  'thirties  and  'forties,  out  of  which,  with  wellnigh 
infinite  thought  and  labor,  the  essays  were  wrought,  were 
the  product  of  a  long  line  of  ministerial  ancestors  of  the 
strictest  Puritan  faith,  the  hardness  and  coldness  of  Cal 
vinism  having  given  place,  however,  to  the  optimistic 
idealism  of  the  new  philosophy  of  transcendentalism.  The 
truths  which  these  essays  set  forth  are  so  fundamental  in 
character,  going  with  unerring  directness  to  the  very  roots 
of  human  nature,  and  are  so  universal  in  their  application 
to  all  times,  to  all  places  and  to  all  peoples,  that  they  con 
stitute  a  body  of  doctrine  of  the  highest  ethical  and  intel 
lectual  value.  They  are  expressed,  moreover,  with  a 
vividness  of  epithet  and  aptness  and  terseness  of  phrase 
which  no  American  has  matched. 


XV 
SLAVERY  AND  SECESSION 

WHAT  were  the  reasons  which  impelled  the  South,  be 
tween  1820  and  1860,  to  contend  so  earnestly  at  first  for  the 
extension  of  slavery  and  later  for  the  vindication  of  the 
institution  as  an  essential  and  necessary  part  of  its  system 
of  civilization,  declaring  slavery  finally  to  be  as  defensible 
morally  as  it  undoubtedly  was  legally,  under  the  Constitu 
tion  and  under  the  state  laws?  Briefly  the  reasons  fell  into 
three  principal  classes.  Two  of  these  were  economic  and 
political,  intimately  related  each  to  the  other.  The  third, 
not  definable  by  an  epithet,  grew  out  of  the  perfectly  natu 
ral  feeling  of  resentment  and  anger  on  the  part  of  South 
erners,  human  nature  being  the  same  in  the  South  as  in  the 
North,  against  the  abolitionists  for  their  unceasing  denun 
ciations,  after  1831,  of  slavery  as  a  crime  against  humanity 
and  as  a  disgrace  to  the  nation,  and  of  slave-owners  as 
shameless  and  immoral  " traffickers  in  human  flesh." 

As  early  as  1820  the  raising  of  slaves  for  the  cotton- 
growers  and  rice-planters  of  the  Carolinas  and  the  Gulf 
states  had  come  to  be  an  important  factor  in  the  industrial 
life  of  Virginia  and  Maryland.  Even  Jefferson  and  Madi 
son,  perceiving  the  present,  and  foreseeing  the  great  pro 
spective,  value  to  the  border  states  of  this  traffic,  became 
converts  at  this  period  to  Clay's  humanitarian  theory  that 
the  extension  of  slavery  into  Missouri  and  over  other  virgin 
territory  would  be  of  great  benefit,  both  morally  and  physi- 

160 


170  SLAVERY  AND   SECESSION 

cally,  to  the  slaves  themselves.  With  each  decade,  as  the 
area  of  the  cotton  fields  under  cultivation  grew  wider,  the 
value  of  slaves  offered  for  sale  in  the  border  states  grew 
higher.  In  1807  the  African  slave  trade  had  been  made 
illegal,  and  in  1820  it  had  been  declared  by  Congress  to  be 
piracy.  By  1822  the  average  price  of  slaves,  which  had 
been  two  hundred  dollars  at  the  end  of  the  previous  cen 
tury,  had  risen  to  three  hundred  dollars.  Eight  years  later 
these  figures  had  been  doubled,  six  hundred  dollars  being 
a  good  price.  By  1840,  Texas  having  in  the  interval  won 
its  independence  from  Mexico  and  offering  fresh  and  well- 
nigh  limitless  lands  to  venturesome  planters,  the  most  ser 
viceable  class  of  cotton  hands  fetched  a  thousand  dollars  or 
more  each;  and  in  the  years  immediately  preceding  the 
Civil  War  negro  women  and  men  of  the  best  grade  as 
workers  sold  at  Savannah  and  elsewhere  as  high  as  a  thou 
sand  dollars  for  the  former  and  fifteen  hundred  for  the 
latter. 

So  urgent  at  this  time  became  the  demand  for  cheaper 
slave  labor  that  appeals  were  made  to  Congress  from  various 
parts  of  the  South  to  legalize  the  African  slave  trade. 
Southern  planters,  of  whom  Yancey,  of  Alabama,  was  a 
type,  complained  because  they  had  to  pay  fifteen  hundred 
dollars  each  for  slaves  in  Virginia,  when  they  could  get  them 
in  Cuba  for  six  hundred  and  on  the  coast  of  Guinea  for  one 
hundred.  The  profits  of  the  business  had  become  so  enor 
mous  and  public  opinion  was  so  complaisant  toward  infrac 
tions  of  the  law,  that  slaves  were  brought  from  Africa  to 
Cuba  and  even  to  southern  ports  of  the  United  States  in 
large  numbers,  New  York  being  the  principal  port  where 
these  slave-traders  were  fitted  out,  just  as  Newport  had  been 


DOMESTIC  TRADE   IN   SLAVES  171 

the  centre  of  the  African  slave  trade  for  New  England  before 
the  Revolutionary  War. 

Down  to  1845  tne  best  market  in  the  South  for  slaves  was 
in  the  cotton-growing  uplands  of  Alabama,  Mississippi  and 
Louisiana.  After  the  admission  of  Texas  into  the  federal 
Union  in  1845  that  state  offered  the  best  market.  Under 
this  stimulus  the  value  of  the  domestic  trade  in  slaves 
between  the  border  states  and  the  cotton-growing  states 
developed  with  great  rapidity.  In  the  decade  from  1850  to 
1860  about  two  hundred  thousand  slaves  are  estimated  to 
have  been  shipped  from  the  border  states  to  the  Far  South. 
At  the  lowest  computation  of  an  average  price  of  five  hun 
dred  dollars  each,  the  value  of  this  traffic  for  this  period 
must  have  been  at  least  a  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  and 
probably  amounted  to  much  more  than  that  sum.  In 
his  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power  in  America  Henry 
Wilson,  of  Massachusetts,  representing  of  course  the  ex 
treme  northern  view  of  the  matter,  says  it  was  estimated 
that  at  the  close  of  this  decade  the  domestic  slave  trade 
had  grown  to  the  sale  of  thirty  thousand  slaves  a  year  at  a 
market  value  of  some  thirty  million  dollars. 

The  South  being  an  agricultural  region  exclusively,  and 
practically  the  entire  revenue  of  southern  planters  being 
derived  from  the  cultivation  of  cotton,  rice,  indigo  and  to 
bacco,  for  which  negroes  alone  were  serviceable,  the  labor 
of  slaves  and  the  trade  in  slaves  constituted  the  economic 
foundation  on  which  the  life  of  the  people,  social,  political 
and  industrial,  rested.  So  great  indeed  was  the  financial 
interest  of  the  South  in  slavery  that  it  was  as  natural  as 
it  was  inevitable  for  the  southern  leaders  of  public  opinion 
to  defend  the  institution  against  all  attacks  and  to  seek  in 


172  SLAVERY  AND   SECESSION 

every  way  to  perpetuate  it.  There  was  no  possible  alterna 
tive  open  to  them.  And  it  was  only  a  short  step  from  this 
attitude  to  the  position  that  slavery  in  itself  was  morally  as 
well  as  legally  right,  and  must  be  protected  at  whatever  cost. 

Throughout  the  southern  states  the  slave-owners  formed 
a  ruling  caste.  Social  standing  and  political  preferment 
were  goals  to  be  reached  by  ambitious  young  men  mainly 
through  the  ownership  of  slaves.  Yet  the  number  of  slave 
owners,  even  as  late  as  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  was 
relatively  small.  Not  more  than  one  white  family  in  five 
throughout  the  slave  states  in  1860  had  a  property  interest 
in  slaves.  And  of  the  total  of  three  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  slave-owning  families  at  this  date  fully  seventy- 
seven  thousand  possessed  only  one  slave  apiece,  while  as 
many  as  two  hundred  thousand  others  owned  fewer  than 
ten  slaves  each.  The  number  of  families  owning  as  many 
as  a  hundred  slaves  each  was  only  twenty-three  hundred  in 
the  entire  South.  It  is  probably  safe  to  say  that  ten  thou 
sand  slave-holding  families  constituted  the  ruling  power  in 
the  social,  political  and  industrial  life  of  the  South  in  1860. 
And  this  masterful  control  was  exercised  over  a  total  popu 
lation  of  about  twelve  and  a  quarter  millions  of  people,  only 
a  little  less  than  a  third  of  whom  were  slaves  and  two  and 
a  half  millions  of  whom  were  poor  whites. 

So  long  as  the  South  retained  a  commanding  influence  in 
the  direction  of  the  affairs  of  the  federal  government,  the 
vast  property  interests  thus  represented  by  slavery  were 
thought  to  be  in  safe  hands.  When,  however,  through 
immigration  and  greater  industrial  energy,  the  free  states 
began  to  surpass  the  slave  states  in  population  and  in 
wealth,  and  when,  as  a  consequence,  this  control  began  to 


RISE  OF  THE  ABOLITIONISTS  173 

be  threaten^,  the  necessity  became  apparent  to  the  leaders 
in  the  South  of  increasing  the  number  of  slave  states  and  in 
this  way  of  securing  additional  representation  in  both  houses 
of  Congress. 

These  economic  and  political  motives,  which  became 
more  and  more  powerful  in  later  years,  were  in  operation, 
moreover,  as  early  as  1820  to  induce  the  South  to  advocate 
the  admission  to  the  federal  Union  as  a  slave  state  of  Mis 
souri,  then  having  a  population  of  fifty-six  thousand  freemen 
and  ten  thousand  slaves,  three-fifths  of  whom,  it  should  be 
remembered,  counted  in  the  enumeration  which  served  as 
the  basis  for  representation  in  the  lower  house  of  Congress. 
With  this  accession  of  slave  territory  the  South  was  satis 
fied  for  the  time  being  that  its  interests  both  political  and 
material  were  being  properly  safeguarded.  As  a  concession 
to  the  northern  opponents  of  the  further  extension  of  sla 
very  the  act  provided  that  thereafter  slavery  should  be  pro 
hibited  in  the  Louisiana  purchase  north  of  the  36°  30'  par 
allel  of  latitude,  the  southern  boundary  of  the  new  state. 
These  were  the  terms  of  the  famous  Missouri  Compromise, 
the  adoption  of  which  brought  to  an  end  the  first  act  in  the 
great  drama  of  slavery. 

With  the  passage  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  the  ques 
tion  of  slavery  was  generally  thought  to  have  been  settled 
permanently  on  a  mutually  satisfactory  basis.  In  1831, 
however,  the  Liberator  made  its  appearance  in  Boston,  and 
the  abolitionists,  under  Garrison's  uncompromising  and 
aggressive  leadership,  began  publicly  to  denounce  slavery 
as  a  crime  and  as  a  disgrace  to  the  nation,  and  to  hold  up 
to  the  scorn  and  contempt  of  the  world  not  only  the  slave 
owners  and  slave-dealers  of  the  South,  but  the  apologists 


174  SLAVERY  AND   SECESSION 

for  slavery,  of  whom  there  were  very  many,  in  the  North. 
The  violent,  vituperative,  even  vindictive  spirit  in  which 
the  abolitionists  from  the  very  start  carried  on  their  anti- 
slavery  crusade  made  emancipation  or  any  other  peaceable 
solution  of  the  question  impossible  thenceforth.  In  the 
North  men  as  a  rule  had  little  time  or  disposition  at  this 
period  to  consider  the  moral  aspects  of  slavery;  they  were 
too  busy  laying  out  towns  and  cities,  making  homes  for 
themselves,  building  turnpikes,  canals  and  railroads,  and 
establishing  great  industries.  They,  therefore,  as  well  as 
the  men  of  the  South,  resented  the  continual  agitation  of 
this  troublesome  question  by  Garrison  and  his  fellow-abo 
litionists  whom  they  regarded  for  years  as  noisy,  meddle 
some  fanatics,  disturbers  of  the  peace  and  fomenters  of 
discord.  The  anti-abolition  riots  which  occurred  in  numer 
ous  cities  of  the  North  expressed  this  sentiment  in  violent 
form,  but  with  the  usual  effect  of  helping  ultimately  the 
cause  of  the  agitators. 

In  the  South  the  attacks  of  the  abolitionists  were  re 
ceived  at  first  with  amazement,  then  with  indignation,  and 
finally,  when  it  came  to  be  believed  that  the  purpose  of  the 
agitation  was  to  excite  a  servile  uprising,  with  alarm  and 
anger.  No  other  results  could  reasonably  have  been  antici 
pated  from  an  intelligent,  self-respecting,  law-abiding  peo 
ple  thus  assailed.  And  as,  with  the  passage  of  years,  public 
opinion,  from  this  and  other  causes  to  be  referred  to  later, 
began  to  gain  ground  in  the  North  that  slavery  was  im 
moral  and  should  be  abolished,  if  a  way  could  be  found 
to  this  end,  or  at  least  checked  in  its  spread,  the  bit 
terness  of  feeling  in  the  South  naturally  grew  greater 
and  greater  and  expressed  itself  more  and  more  freely. 


SOUTHERN   DOMINATION  THREATENED     175 

Thus  the  breach  between  the  two  sections  constantly 
grew  wider. 

As  the  free  states  continued  to  outstrip  the  slave  states 
in  population  and  industrial  wealth,  the  danger  threaten 
ing  to  undermine  southern  domination  in  the  federal  gov 
ernment  and  thus  to  imperil  the  institution  of  slavery  be 
came  more  and  more  acute.  The  magnitude  of  the  issues 
involved  in  slavery  and  in  the  allied  southern  doctrine  of 
state  sovereignty  brought  new  leaders  into  the  arena,  two 
of  whom  stood  head  and  shoulders  above  their  fellows — 
Calhoun,  of  South  Carolina,  in  advocacy  of,  and  Webster, 
of  Massachusetts,  in  opposition  to,  the  extension  of 
slavery.  Calhoun  and  his  associates  sought  to  avert  this 
impending  danger  in  various  ways:  by  securing  the 
admission  of  Texas  as  a  slave  state  in  1845,  being  thwarted, 
however,  in  their  plan  to  carve  three  or  four  new  slave  states 
from  the  enormous  territory  thus  acquired;  by  forcing  the 
government,  a  year  later,  into  war  with  Mexico,  in  the 
hope  and  expectation  that  other  slave  states  might  be 
created  from  the  territory  which  Mexico  would  be  com 
pelled  to  cede  as  the  price  of  peace — a  hope  that  was  never 
realized;  and,  finally,  by  securing  the  passage  in  1850  of 
the  Fugitive  Slave  law.  As  an  offset  to  this  last-named 
concession  to  the  South,  California  was  admitted  to  the 
federal  Union  as  a  free  state,  such  being  the  wishes  of  her 
people,  and  the  trade  in  slaves,  but  not  slavery  itself,  was 
prohibited  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  Such  were  the 
main  provisions  of  Clay's  Compromise  of  1850,  of  which 
Calhoun,  however,  then  nearing  his  end,  was  the  real  author. 

Each  of  these  measures  which  Congress  passed  between 
1820  and  1850  was  designed  to  give  greater  security  to  the 


176  SLAVERY  AND   SECESSION 

slave  power  in  the  nation  than  it  had  possessed  before,  and 
each  of  them  attained  this  object.  No  one  of  them  could 
have  been  passed  by  the  votes  of  the  slave  states  alone; 
the  assistance  of  northern  sympathizers  was  always  neces 
sary  and  was  always  forthcoming.  Administration  after 
administration,  even  when  the  President  came  from  a  free 
state,  as  was  the  case  with  Pierce  and  Buchanan,  was  so 
under  the  dominating  influence  of  the  South  that  north 
ern  votes  for  the  advancement  of  its  projects  were  secured 
without  difficulty. 

The  turning-point  in  the  history  of  slavery  in  the  United 
States  was  reached  with  the  passage  in  1854  of  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  act.  The  author  and  successful  advocate  of 
this  measure,  Senator  Douglas,  of  Illinois,  a  Democrat  of 
character  and  ability,  thought  that  in  "squatter  sover 
eignty"  he  had  found  a  political  principle  which  would 
solve  the  slavery  problem  satisfactorily  to  both  northern 
Democrats  and  southern  slave-holders,  and  which  might, 
as  a  consequence,  secure  for  him  the  Democratic  nomina 
tion  for  the  Presidency.  In  accordance  with  this  prin 
ciple  the  people  of  a  territory  were  to  be  allowed  to  decide 
for  themselves  whether  slavery  or  freedom  should  prevail 
within  its  borders.  With  the  application  of  this  principle 
to  the  territories  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  was  involved 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  which  for  thirty- 
four  years,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  checked  the  north 
ern  progress  of  slavery  at  the  36°  30'  parallel  of  latitude. 
Thus  the  enormous  area  of  territory  now  included  in  the 
states  of  Kansas,  Nebraska,  the  Dakotas,  Montana,  a  part 
of  Colorado  and  Wyoming,  was  again  thrown  into  the 
political  arena  as  a  prize  for  fierce  and  bitter  contention 


KANSAS  A  BATTLE-GROUND  177 

between  the  advocates  and  opponents  of  the  extension  of 
slavery. 

The  South  immediately  saw  in  the  situation  which  the 
ingenuity  and  ambition  of  Douglas  had  created  an  oppor 
tunity  to  make  Kansas,  the  territorial  boundaries  of  which 
then  extended  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  a  slave  state. 
Kansas  therefore  soon  became  literally  a  battle-ground 
between  the  contending  forces — the  pro-slavery  men,  on 
the  one  hand,  called  by  the  anti-slavery  party,  from  their 
motley  appearance  and  their  high-handed  acts,  "  border 
ruffians,"  who  came  from  the  adjoining  slave  state  of  Mis 
souri,  and,  on  the  other,  the  emigrants  who  poured  into 
the  territory  from  the  North,  mainly  from  New  England, 
who,  with  almost  a  fanatical  hatred  of  slavery,  were  equally 
determined  to  make  Kansas  a  free  state  by  their  very 
numbers. 

These  emigrants  were  the  expression  of  a  great  change 
which  had  taken  place  in  northern  sentiment  in  the  decade 
between  the  admission  of  Texas  into  the  federal  Union  and 
the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill.  The  abolition 
ists,  against  whom  at  the  outset  of  their  agitation,  as  has 
been  pointed  out,  every  one's  hand  had  been  turned,  were 
in  part  responsible  for  this  change,  although  their  influence 
later  became  less  and  less,  the  vagaries  of  their  leaders 
carrying  them  finally  to  the  point  of  looking  upon  secession 
with  complacency  and  of  burning  publicly  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.  Other  influences  had  also  been  at 
work.  The  conviction  that  the  war  with  Mexico  was  un 
justly  begun  and  was  inspired  by  the  slave  power,  finding 
lasting  expression,  as  has  already  been  noted,  through 
Lowell  in  The  Biglow  Papers,  had  become  wide-spread. 


178  SLAVERY  AND   SECESSION 

Mrs.  Stowe's  appealing  story  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  had 
produced  a  profound  impression  throughout  the  North, 
especially  among  those  readers  whose  sympathies  were 
easily  moved,  notwithstanding  the  vehement  protests  of 
the  South  that  the  picture  was  overcolored,  false  and  mis 
leading.  •  The  operation  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  law,  which 
formed  one  of  the  main  themes  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  novel,  was 
a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  North  causing  constant  irritation. 
The  feeling,  under  all  these  influences,  had  gained  ground 
steadily  and  had  at  last  become  deep-seated  that  slavery 
in  itself  was  a  great  wrong  and  that  its  further  spread  must 
be  stopped.  If,  as  seemed  to  be  the  case,  the  slave  states 
were  anxious  to  make  a  test  of  the  matter  in  Kansas,  the 
North  was  ready  to  accept  the  challenge. 

The  simplicity  of  the  issue  thus  presented,  combined 
with  the  changed  temper  of  the  North,  had  the  immediate 
effect  of  bringing  order  out  of  the  confusion  into  which  the 
slavery  question  had  brought  the  Free-soil,  Whig  and 
American  or  Knownothing  parties  in  the  free  states.  The 
victories  which  the  new  anti-Nebraska  party  won  were  the 
prelude  only  to  the  organization  of  the  Republican  party, 
with  its  cardinal  doctrine  of  opposition  to  the  further  ex 
tension  of  slavery.  Although  the  Republicans  failed  in 
1856  to  elect  their  first  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  John 
C.  Fremont,  they  went  on  perfecting  their  organization  in 
the  free  states  and  faced  the  slave  power  in  Congress  with 
a  more  resolute  and  a  more  confident  spirit  than  had  ever 
before  been  displayed.  New  men  came  forward  to  take  the 
places  of  the  old  leaders — Seward,  Sumner,  Chase,  Wilson, 
Hale,  with  many  others — men  who  embodied  this  new 
spirit  and  who  refused  longer  to  yield  to  the  arrogant  die- 


i8o  SLAVERY  AND   SECESSION 

tation  of  the  slave-owners,  of  whom,  in  Pierce's  admin 
istration,  Jefferson  Davis  was  looked  upon  as  the  most 
arrogant  and  the  most  dictatorial. 

Not  a  few  events,  all  of  which  possessed  a  dramatic  and 
some  of  which  even  a  tragic  character,  occurred  during 
these  momentous  years  which  had  the  effect  of  fostering 
anti-slavery  sentiment  and  of  building  up  and  solidifying 
the  new  Republican  party:  further  outrages  in  Kansas, 
illustrating  the  desperate  lengths  to  which  its  rule-or-ruin 
policy  was  carrying  the  pro-slavery  party  of  Missouri; 
the  brutal  assault  by  Brooks  upon  Sumner,  in  the  Senate 
Chamber  in  May,  1856;  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  in  the  Dred  Scott  case  in  1857;  the 
joint  debates  between  the  hitherto  unknown  Illinois  law 
yer,  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  Judge  Douglas,  the  author  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  act  and  the  leader  of  the  northern  wing 
of  the  Democratic  party;  and,  finally,  the  foolhardy  raid,  in 
October,  1859,  of  John  Brown  and  his  handful  of  followers 
upon  Harper's  Ferry,  for  the  purpose  of  freeing  slaves. 

The  details  of  these  events  were  received  in  the  North 
with  breathless  interest  and  provoked  wide  discussion. 
The  stories  of  the  crimes  perpetrated  by  the  "border 
ruffians"  against  life  and  property  as  well  as  against 
the  ballot  in  Kansas  aroused  amazement  and  indig 
nation  when  told  to  northern  audiences.  The  savage 
assault  upon  the  senator  from  Massachusetts  was  accepted 
as  a  notification  that  the  slave  power,  driven  at  last  to  the 
wall,  was  prepared  to  resort  to  physical  violence  in  order 
to  beat  down  all  opposition  to  its  imperious  will.  In  the 
cold  light  of  history  the  assault  is  found  to  have  grown 
directly  out  of  the  language,  unjustifiably  intemperate  and 


INSPIRATION  OF  JOHN  BROWN'S   RAID       181 

even  personally  offensive,  which  Sumner  a  day  or  two  pre 
viously  had  applied  in  the  course  of  a  speech  to  a  fellow- 
senator,  Butler,  of  South  Carolina,  a  relative  of  Brooks. 
The  free  states,  moreover,  refused  to  accept  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  as  the  law  of  the  land.  This  decision,  which  had 
given  great  joy  to  the  South,  denied  citizenship  to  a  slave 
transferred  to  a  free  territory,  and  confirmed  his  master's 
ownership  in  him  as  property,  while  incidentally  declaring 
the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820  to  be  void,  on  the  ground 
that  Congress  possessed  no  power  to  prohibit  slavery  in 
any  territory. 

This  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  confirming  the 
soundness  of  the  position  which  the  South  had  maintained 
for  years  with  reference  both  to  the  status  of  slavery  in 
the  territories  and  to  the  obligation  of  Congress  to  pro 
tect  slavery  therein,  came  too  late,  however,  in  the  con 
troversy  to  exert  more  than  an  academic  influence.  The 
time  had  arrived  when  action  was  to  take  the  place  of 
further  contentious  discussion.  John  Brown  embodied  this 
feeling.  His  raid  not  unnaturally  threw  the  South  into  a 
panic  of  fear  lest  it  might  be  the  signal  for  a  general  servile 
uprising.  The  South  held  the  "Black  Republicans "  equally 
responsible  with  the  abolitionists  for  the  tragic  conse 
quences  of  that  ill-fated  expedition.  The  evidence  failed, 
however,  to  show  that  Brown,  as  grim  and  fanatical  a 
Puritan  as  ever  followed  Cromwell,  had  had  any  associa 
tion  with  the  Republican  leaders.  Wearied  with  the  inter 
minable  talk  of  his  abolitionist  friends  about  the  evils  of 
slavery,  he  had  decided  that  then  was  the  accepted  time 
for  him  to  serve  as  the  instrument  of  the  divine  will  in 
doing  what  they  had  long  preached  ought  to  be  done. 


182  SLAVERY  AND   SECESSION 

The  Lincoln-Douglas  debates,  with  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
act  and  slavery  in  general  as  the  theme,  were  of  national 
scope  and  interest,  although  they  bore  directly  on  the 
local  contests  in  Illinois  for  the  United  States  Senatorship. 
For  they  had  a  decisive  effect  upon  the  careers  of  both 
men  and  upon  the  parties  of  which  they  were  the  repre 
sentative  leaders.  It  was  in  these  debates  that  Lincoln 
revealed  himself  as  a  deep  thinker  and  a  close,  powerful 
reasoner,  who  reached  fundamental  truths  slowly,  clung 
to  them  tenaciously,  and  expressed  them  with  simplicity, 
clearness  and  force.  It  was  also  through  these  debates 
that  Judge  Douglas,  more  brilliant  intellectually  and  more 
adroit  as  a  politician  at  this  stage  of  his  career  than  Lin 
coln,  was  nevertheless  forced,  in  order  to  placate  some  of 
his  northern  followers,  into  the  adoption  of  a  variation  of 
his  " squatter  sovereignty"  idea  as  a  device  for  evading  in 
the  territories  the  full  force  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision. 
From  that  moment  Douglas  was  marked  for  destruction 
by  the  slave-owners,  who  accused  him  of  double-dealing 
and  of  betraying  their  interests,  and  who  split  the  Demo 
cratic  party  in  the  Charleston  Convention  in  1860  rather 
than  follow  his  leadership  further.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
prominence  which  these  joint  debates  gave  Lincoln  was 
one  of  the  chief  influences  leading  to  his  nomination  for  the 
Presidency  in  the  Chicago  Convention  in  the  same  year, 
after  it  had  been  made  clear  that  Seward  could  not  win 
the  prize. 

The  election  of  Lincoln  made  secession  inevitable.  The 
action  of  the  seven  slave  states,  South  Carolina,  Mississippi, 
Florida,  Alabama,  Georgia,  Louisiana  and  Texas,  in  with 
drawing  from  the  federal  Union,  one  after  the  other,  as  soon 


LOGIC  OF  THE   SOUTHERN  VIEW  183 

as  his  election  as  President  became  an  assured  fact,  was 
perfectly  consistent  with  their  records  and  with  their  view 
of  what  the  future  had  in  store  for  them.  To  the  southern 
leaders  of  that  day,  Davis,  Toombs,  Stephens  and  Benja 
min  among  others,  the  supremacy  of  the  Republican  party 
meant  that  sooner  or  later  the  attempt  would  be  made  to 
uproot  and  destroy  slavery.  Lincoln  himself  had  publicly 
declared  it  to  be  his  belief  that  the  government  could  not 
endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  Was  it  not 
perfectly  logical  to  suppose  that  Lincoln  and  his  "  Black 
Republican"  followers,  now  that  they  were  in  power,  would 
seek  by  some  means  to  destroy  this  monstrous  evil,  as  they 
regarded  it,  and  to  make  the  nation  all  free? 

To  the  extremists  of  the  South  there  seemed  to  be  only 
one  feasible  solution  of  the  difficult  problem— secession. 
Several  of  the  border  states,  however,  notably  Virginia, 
left  the  Union  with  great  reluctance  and  only  after  it  be 
came  apparent  that  the  federal  government  intended  to 
resort  to  armed  force  in  order,  if  possible,  to  bring  the  seced 
ing  states  back  into  the  Union.  A  quarter  of  a  century 
earlier  Calhoun,  more  skilful  in  forecasting  the  future  than 
he  was  in  providing  remedies  with  which  to  avert  its  perils, 
had  announced  with  characteristic  southern  boldness  that 
the  institution  of  slavery  was  vitally  necessary  not  only  to 
the  welfare  but  to  the  very  existence  of  southern  civiliza 
tion,  and  that  if  the  South  ever  had  to  make  a  choice  be 
tween  slavery  and  the  Union  it  would  unhesitatingly  give 
up  the  Union.  The  time  seemed  to  have  arrived  when 
this  choice  must  be  made,  and  Calhoun,  by  his  elaboration, 
exposition  and  justification  of  the  doctrine  of  state  sov 
ereignty,  had  given  the  South  a  serviceable  instrument 


1 84  SLAVERY  AND   SECESSION 

with  which  to  meet  just  such  a  crisis.  This  doctrine  em 
powering  a  sovereign  state  to  secede  from  the  federal  Union 
whenever  what  it  conceived  to  be  its  rights  under  the  Con 
stitution  were  infringed  or  even  threatened  had  been  im 
planted  by  Calhoun  so  deeply  and  securely  in  the  southern 
mind  that  it  had  become  a  political  axiom,  notwithstand 
ing  Webster's  argument  upholding  the  supreme  authority 
of  the  federal  power  under  the  compact  entered  into  by  the 
" people  of  the  United  States."  In  resorting,  by  with 
drawal  from  the  federal  Union,  to  this  doctrine  of  state 
sovereignty  and  in  organizing  the  Confederate  States  of 
America,  with  Jefferson  Davis  as  President  and  Alexander 
H.  Stephens  as  Vice-President,  South  Carolina  and  her 
sister  commonwealths  were  thus  exercising  what  they  hon 
estly  believed  to  be  their  Constitutional  rights,  in  order  to 
provide  a  government  under  which  slavery  might  be  secure 
from  molestation. 

Even  under  these  critical  conditions,  however,  the  lead 
ers  in  the  seceding  states  did  not  expect  war  to  follow. 
The  opinion  was  general  among  them  that  the  free  states 
would  not  resort  to  armed  coercion.  The  expectation  was 
equally  wide-spread  that,  as  had  always  heretofore  been 
the  case,  some  compromise  would  in  time  be  arranged  by 
which  slavery  might  again  be  saved  to  the  South.  To  this 
end  commissioners  were  sent  to  Washington,  at  first  from 
South  Carolina  and  later  from  the  new  Confederate  govern 
ment  itself,  to  discuss  terms  upon  which  these  independent 
"nations"  might  continue  to  live  in  peace  and  harmony 
with  each  other. 

Despite  the  abject  failure  of  these  missions  some  of  the 
more  fiery  spirits  in  the  South  continued  to  doubt  if  the 


LINCOLN'S   STATESMANSHIP  185 

North  could  even  be  forced  to  fight.  The  attitude,  more 
over,  of  a  large  and  influential  portion  of  the  leaders  in  the 
free  states  gave  some  ground  for  this  contemptuous  opin 
ion.  For  hesitation,  vacillation  and  timidity  marked  the 
conduct  of  many  of  the  men  who  had  been  most  conspicu 
ous  as  molders  of  public  opinion  in  the  North — Greeley 
and  Phillips  among  the  number — not  a  few  of  whom  seemed 
panic-stricken  at  the  prospect  of  facing  the  legitimate  con 
sequences  of  their  own  teachings,  and  who  were  more  than 
willing  to  allow  the  South  to  go  her  own  way  in  peace  rather 
than  to  accept  the  alternative  of  civil  war.  In  the  sharp 
est  possible  contrast,  on  the  other  hand,  to  this  state  of 
demoralization  were  the  qualities  which  at  the  outset  the 
southern  leaders  brought  to  the  colossal  task  which  they 
had  set  themselves  to  perform — singleness  and  definiteness 
of  purpose,  intelligent  and  effective  co-operation,  unlimited 
self-confidence,  and  a  determination  to  make  every  sacrifice 
in  order  to  achieve  the  end  they  had  in  view. 

There  was  one  man,  however,  who,  amid  all  the  turmoil 
of  conflicting  opinions  that  prevailed  in  the  North  during 
the  interregnum  under  the  bewildered  Buchanan,  remained 
at  his  home  in  Illinois,  calm,  serious,  unperturbed  by  the 
clamor  around  him,  watching  events  closely,  studying  pub 
lic  opinion,  and  working  his  way,  laboriously  but  surely,  as 
was  his  wont,  to  immutable  conclusions  founded  not  only 
upon  the  highest  justice  but  upon  a  knowledge  of  human 
nature  which  was  the  fruit  of  years  of  contact  with  his 
fellow-men.  As  a  result  of  these  reflections  Lincoln  finally 
decided  to  thrust  slavery  into  the  background  and  to  make 
the  preservation  of  the  Union  the  commanding  issue  before 
the  country.  This  he  did  in  his  inaugural  address;  and  at 


1 86  SLAVERY  AND   SECESSION 

no  stage  of  his  career  did  he  show  greater  qualities  of 
statesmanship,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  than  in 
lifting  the  contest  thus  early  to  the  lofty  plane  of  national 
patriotism  and  in  appealing  at  the  outset  to  the  universal 
passion  throughout  the  North  for  an  undivided  country. 
By  this  master-stroke  of  statesmanship  he  saved  several  of 
the  doubtful  border  states  for  the  Union  and  lighted  in  the 
free  states  a  flame  of  patriotic  ardor  which,  fanned  into  a 
blaze  a  few  weeks  later  by  the  news  from  Sumter,  spread 
thenceforth  with  marvellous  rapidity  and  acquired  an  over 
whelming  force. 


XVI 
CIVIL  WAR 

FROM  first  to  last  the  dominating  figure  in  the  Civil  War 
on  the  side  of  the  North  was  that  of  Lincoln.  The  duty  of 
guiding  the  nation  safely  through  the  momentous  crisis  in 
which  it  found  itself  had  been  entrusted  to  him  by  the 
people,  and  he  took  up  the  task  with  a  masterful  self- 
reliance  which  annoyed,  irritated  and  finally  angered  not 
only  his  avowed  enemies,  but  the  leaders  of  his  own  party, 
who  should  have  been  his  steadfast  supporters.  After  the 
lapse  of  half  a  century  no  one  can  read  the  full  story  of 
those  eventful  four  years  without  a  feeling  of  wonder  and 
amazement  that  Lincoln  accomplished  what  he  did  in  the 
face  of  the  criticism,  fault-finding,  envy  and  malice  to 
which  he  was  subjected.  What  sustained  him  through  this 
ordeal  was  his  conviction  that  he  knew  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  the  people  of  the  North  better  than  the  politicians  and 
editors  did,  and  his  faith  that  his  course  in  each  emergency 
as  it  presented  itself  would,  sooner  or  later,  win  the  ap 
proval  of  their  common-sense  and  of  their  moral  sense. 
The  results  showed  that  his  conviction  was  sound  and  his 
faith  justified. 

The  attack  upon  Sumter  in  April,  1861,  found  the  gov 
ernment  utterly  unprepared  for  war.  During  the  inter 
regnum  following  the  national  election,  Buchanan  had  shut 
his  eyes  resolutely  against  the  acts  of  the  southern  leaders 
in  his  own  cabinet,  in  Congress  and  throughout  the  South 

187 


i88  CIVIL  WAR 

where  federal  forts  and  arsenals  were  situated,  and  had 
closed  his  ears  just  as  resolutely  against  the  repeated  warn 
ings  from  men  of  judgment  and  authority  that  unless 
immediate  steps  were  taken  to  protect  the  government's 
property  it  would  all  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  secession 
ists.  Confused  and  appalled  by  the  unexpected  and  omi 
nous  turn  which  affairs  were  taking,  Buchanan  was  weakly 
content  merely  to  mark  time,  his  sole  desire  apparently 
being  to  preserve  the  peace  until  the  newly-elected  Presi 
dent  could  assume  the  reins  of  power.  He  succeeded  in 
this  object.  To  his  pusillanimity  in  this  emergency,  how 
ever,  was  largely  due  the  belief  which  became  wide-spread 
in  the  South  at  this  time  that  Northerners  were  cowardly 
at  heart  and  that  the  government  itself  was  devoid  of  self- 
respect. 

In  the  first  two  years  of  the  war  the  Union  forces  in  the 
East  were  out-manoeuvred  and  out-fought  at  almost  every 
point  by  the  Confederates.  Even  with  superior  numbers 
McClellan,  Pope,  Burnside  and  Hooker  were  no  match  in 
strategy  for  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  Lee,  Jackson  and  Stuart, 
operating  often,  but  by  no  means  always,  defensively  on 
inside  lines  in  territory  with  which  they  were  more  or  less 
familiar.  The  greater  mobility  of  the  Confederate  troops, 
especially  when  they  were  led  by  Jackson,  enabled  Lee 
more  than  once  to  play  upon  the  fears  of  the  Washington 
administration  and  of  the  politicians  for  the  safety  of  the 
capital,  and  in  this  way  to  prevent  the  concentration  of  the 
Union  forces  under  McClellan,  whose  plans  were  seriously 
interfered  with  in  consequence.  On  the  side  of  the  North 
the  period  was  one  of  experiment  after  experiment  by  the 
President  in  the  search  for  a  commander  who  could  win 


McCLELLAN  AS  A   COMMANDER  189 

victories  and  follow  them  up  with  crushing  force.  Mc- 
Clellan,  yielding  to  his  fatal  habit  of  resting,  recruiting  and 
reorganizing  his  army  after  a  battle,  was  finally  displaced 
permanently  when  he  failed,  after  Antietam,  to  overwhelm 
or,  at  least,  seriously  to  cripple  Lee  before  he  could  recross 
the  Potomac  into  Virginia.  Pope  had  already  been  badly 
beaten  at  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run,  and  the  terrible 
disasters  later  of  Fredericksburg  and  Chancellorsville 
proved  conclusively  the  unfitness  of  Burnside  and  Hooker, 
respectively,  for  the  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Po 
tomac. 

Military  and  civilian  critics  of  the  war  will  never  agree 
as  to  what  McClellan  might  or  might  not  have  accomplished 
with  the  splendid  army  which  he  had  organized,  if  he  had 
not  been  interfered  with  constantly  by  the  President  as 
well  as  by  the  politicians  big  and  little  in  Washington.  It 
was  doubtless  his  misfortune  that  the  scene  of  his  military 
operations  was  so  near  the  seat  of  government.  He  pos 
sessed  a  genius  for  organization  and  was  beloved  by  his 
soldiers,  for  whose  welfare  and  comfort  he  had  almost  too 
much  concern.  The  final  judgment  will  probably  be  that 
he  lacked  the  moral  qualities  of  a  great  commander- 
initiative,  energy,  versatility  and  an  appreciation  of  the 
importance  of  the  political  as  well  as  the  purely  military 
aspects  of  a  situation.  His  horizon  was  circumscribed 
within  narrow  and  purely  military  limits.  The  state  of 
the  roads  in  his  immediate  front  and  of  his  commissariat 
gave  him  constant  concern.  The  state  of  public  opinion 
in  the  North,  which  might  make  a  vigorous  forward  move 
ment  on  his  part  imperative,  whatever  the  risk,  did  not 
appear  to  affect  him  in  the  slightest  degree.  It  was,  no 


igo  CIVIL  WAR 

doubt,  the  discovery  of  these  radical  defects  in  McClellan's 
character  as  a  soldier  which  led  Lincoln  to  distrust  him 
finally  and  to  refuse  to  give  him  the  free  hand  which  he 
later  gave  to  Grant  without  hesitation. 

In  the  West  very  different  conditions  from  those  in  the 
East  prevailed.  The  scene  of  operations  at  the  outset  in 
Tennessee  was  a  sufficient  distance  from  Washington  to 
make  interference  from  that  quarter  comparatively  difficult 
and  infrequent;  general  instructions  had  to  suffice.  The 
Union  commanders  were  thus  thrown  more  largely  upon 
their  own  resources.  They  were  men,  moreover,  of  a  dif 
ferent  type  from  the  general  officers  in  the  East,  more 
aggressive  and  more  tenacious  in  holding  whatever  ground 
they  won.  They  possessed  also  latent  self-reliance  and 
power  of  initiative,  qualities  which  were  developed  by 
the  very  conditions  under  which  they  fought.  Grant's 
peremptory  demand  for  the  unconditional  surrender  of 
Fort  Donelson,  in  February,  1862,  gave  the  key  to  his 
forcible,  aggressive  character  as  a  military  leader.  His 
pugnacious  tenacity  was  revealed  a  few  weeks  later  in 
the  repulse  of  General  A.  S.  Johnston's  fierce  attack  upon 
the  Union  forces  at  Pittsburg  Landing  or  Shiloh,  a  bloody 
and  stubbornly  fought  battle  which  was  turned  into  a  Union 
victory  by  the  timely  arrival  of  Buell,  and  which  involved 
a  serious  loss  to  the  Confederacy  in  the  death  of  General 
Johnston,  one  of  its  ablest  officers. 

When  early  in  1864  Congress  placed  Grant  in  command 
of  all  the  Union  armies  his  name  had  become  synonymous 
with  victory.  The  news  of  his  capture  of  Vicksburg,  in 
cluding  Pemberton's  army  of  thirty-one  thousand  men, 
after  a  siege,  which  had  been  preceded  by  a  sharp  but  effec- 


I! 

w 


iQ2  CIVIL  WAR 

tive  campaign  against  Joseph  E.  Johnston  in  order  to  drive 
him  away  from  the  neighborhood,  reached  the  North  in 
1863  simultaneously  with  the  details  of  the  Union  victory 
at   Gettysburg,   in  which   Meade,   Hooker's   successor  in 
command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  had  defeated  Lee 
and  had  put  an  end  to  his  audacious  invasion  of  Penn 
sylvania.     The  naval  expedition  of  Farragut  and  Porter 
having  by  a  bold  stroke,  a  year  earlier,  destroyed  the  Con 
federate  batteries  and  ships  below  New  Orleans,  the  Mis 
sissippi,  when  Vicksburg  surrendered  to  Grant  and  Port 
Hudson  consequently  capitulated  to  Banks,  came  under  the 
control  of  the  Union  forces  throughout  its  length.     The 
South  was  thus  divided,  and  thenceforth  the  Confederate 
government  was  deprived  of  the  rich  territory  to  the  west 
of  the  river  as  a  source  of  supplies  in  men  and  food.   Grant's 
Chattanooga  campaign,  in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year, 
in  which  he  had  the  assistance  of  Sherman,  Thomas,  Sheri 
dan  and  Hooker,  and  which  culminated  in  the  storming 
of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge,  went  far  to 
confirm  the  impression  which  his  career  up  to  that  time  had 
created  that  he  possessed  military  ability  of  a  high  order. 
He  revealed,  in  the  words  of  the  Comte  de  Paris  in  treating 
of  this  campaign,  a  mind  "powerful  to  conceive,  firm  to 
execute  and  fertile  in  resources  at  the  critical  time. "  Vicks 
burg  and  Chattanooga,  therefore,  not  to  include  Shiloh  and 
Donelson,  made  the  selection  of  Grant  as  the  leader  of  the 
Union  forces  inevitable.     Here  at  last,  thought  the  Presi 
dent,  is  the  man  to  meet  and  defeat  Lee — a  man  who  fights 
and  holds  his  ground  and  keeps  on  fighting  until  he  has 
gained  his  end. 

Meanwhile  some  other  aspects  of  the  great  conflict  re- 


ATTITUDE   OF   ENGLAND  193 

quire  consideration.  During  the  first  two  years  of  the  war 
the  menace  of  English  or  French  intervention  in  behalf  of 
the  South  gave  great  concern  to  the  administration  of  Presi 
dent  Lincoln.  The  Confederate  government  was  confident 
from  the  outset  that  the  cotton  of  the  South  was  so  neces 
sary  to  the  prosperity  and  even  to  the  continued  existence 
of  the  English  mills  that  Great  Britain  would  be  compelled 
before  long  to  interfere  in  its  behalf — perhaps  even  to  em 
ploy  force  in  order  to  raise  the  blockade  which  the  vessels 
of  the  Union  navy  had  made  effective  at  almost  every 
point  along  the  southern  coast.  This  confidence,  however, 
proved  to  be  misplaced. 

As  a  whole  the  English  aristocracy  and  the  middle  classes 
were  hostile  to  the  North,  and  made  no  concealment  of  the 
satisfaction  they  would  feel  if  the  Confederacy  carried  out 
its  design  to  break  the  great  republic  in  two.  This  feel 
ing  was  first  revealed  early  in  the  war  when  the  two  Con 
federate  envoys,  Mason  and  Slidell,  were  forcibly  taken 
from  the  British  mail  steamship  Trent  by  an  American  naval 
officer  and  conveyed  to  Boston.  In  returning  the  envoys 
to  the  shelter  of  an  English  war-vessel  Mr.  Seward,  Presi 
dent  Lincoln's  Secretary  of  State,  adroitly  pointed  out  that 
the  United  States  had  fought  the  War  of  1812  in  defense  of 
the  very  principle  which  Great  Britain  had  now  applied 
to  the  case  of  the  Trent.  The  act  of  the  American  naval 
officer,  being  thus  inconsistent  with  the  invariable  policy 
of  the  United  States  government  with  reference  to  im 
pressment,  was  therefore  disowned.  War  with  England, 
with  results  that  can  scarcely  be  imagined,  was  thus  nar 
rowly  averted.  The  arrogant  and  peremptory  manner  in 
which  England  enforced  immediate  compliance  with  its 


194  CIVIL  WAR 

demands  left,  however,  a  rankling  wound  in  the  breasts  of 
many  men  in  the  North. 

The  British  workingmen,  on  the  other  hand,  perhaps 
with  a  truer  instinct  for  the  moral  issue  involved  in  slavery 
as  the  real  cause  of  the  war,  sympathized  as  a  rule  with  the 
North,  notwithstanding  the  suffering  they  were  enduring 
from  the  effects  of  the  blockade  of  the  southern  ports.  The 
influence  of  the  President's  proclamation,  issued  as  a  war 
measure,  emancipating  the  slaves  after  January  i,  1863, 
was  immediately  felt  in  England.  In  the  light  of  emanci 
pation  the  purpose  of  the  North  in  the  war  was  no  longer 
solely  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  but  included  as  well 
the  extinction  of  slavery.  After  this  declaration  English 
intervention  in  any  form  in  behalf  of  the  Confederacy 
would  have  been  in  effect  an  effort  to  protect  and  perpetuate 
slavery,  and  English  public  opinion,  it  was  soon  discovered, 
would  not  sustain  the  government  in  any  course  which 
might  lead  to  such  a  result. 

It  was  fortunate  that  through  all  these  anxious  years  the 
United  States  government  had  as  minister  at  the  Court  of 
St.  James  a  man  of  the  character  of  Charles  Francis  Adams, 
whose  courage,  firmness,  self-control  and  family  pride 
equipped  him  admirably  to  meet  the  cold  indifference  or 
open  hostility  of  the  English  officials  with  whom  he  had 
to  deal.  It  was  largely  through  his  intelligent  and  untiring 
efforts,  moreover,  that  the  schemes  of  Napoleon  III  for  the 
joint  recognition  by  England  and  France  of  the  Confed 
eracy  as  an  independent  nation  were  frustrated.  Many 
years  later  the  British  government  was  compelled  to  pay 
the  United  States  fifteen  and  a  half  million  dollars,  under 
the  award  of  the  Geneva  tribunal,  before  which  the  abundant 


ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  THE   UNION  NAVY       195 

and  conclusive  evidence  collected  by  Mr.  Adams  was  laid,  as 
compensation  for  the  negligence  amounting  to  connivance 
which  allowed  the  Alabama  and  other  Confederate  privateers 
to  escape  from  British  ports,  fully  armed  and  manned,  to 
carry  destruction  to  American  shipping  all  over  the  world. 
It  was  impracticable  early  in  the  war  for  the  North  even 
to  attempt  to  check  the  ravages  of  these  Anglo-Confederate 
commerce  destroyers.  The  all-important  establishment  and 
maintenance  of  the  blockade  along  a  coast  line  of  three 
thousand  miles,  together  with  service  on  the  inland  waters 
of  the  Mississippi  and  its  great  tributaries,  in  conjunction 
with  the  operations  of  the  land  forces,  monopolized  the 
entire  energies  of  the  Union  navy.  During  this  period  and 
later,  however,  several  noteworthy  achievements  of  the 
Union  naval  forces,  standing  out  with  distinctness  from 
the  monotonous  duty  of  blockade  service,  possessed  unusual 
significance.  The  fight  between  the  Monitor  and  the  Mer- 
rimac,  inconclusive  in  itself  but  of  the  highest  importance 
in  ending  the  devastating  career  of  the  first  iron-clad  mm 
ever  built  for  use  in  war,  revolutionized  naval  construction 
in  a  day,  bringing  to  a  close  the  romantic  era  in  which  the 
Bonhomme  Richard,  the  Victory  and  the  Constitution  had 
played  their  heroic  parts,  and  ushering  in  the  period  in 
which  the  formidable  steel  battle-ships  of  the  present  time 
were  to  develop.  The  capture  of  New  Orleans  in  April, 
1862,  by  the  naval  expedition  under  Farragut  and  Porter, 
brought  the  Mississippi  as  far  north  as  Vicksburg  under  the 
control  of  the  Union  forces,  simplified  greatly  the  problem 
which  the  siege  of  Vicksburg  presented  to  Grant  a  year 
later,  and  supplied  the  United  States  minister  to  England 
with  his  first  really  weighty  argument  against  the  recogni- 


196  CIVIL  WAR 

tion  of  the  Confederacy.  Farragut's  highest  achievement, 
however,  was  the  victory  of  his  fleet  in  the  battle  of  Mobile 
Bay  in  August,  1864,  a  victory  which  closed  to  blockade 
runners  the  last  port  of  importance  save  Wilmington,  N.  C., 
which  the  Confederates  had  kept  open.  Less  than  two 
months  earlier  the  Kearsarge  in  sinking  the  Alabama  off 
Cherbourg  had  presented  to  Englishmen,  under  their  very 
eyes,  so  to  speak,  an  argument  in  favor  of  the  North  of  a 
kind  which  they  could  appreciate. 

The  summer  and  early  autumn  of  1864  were  a  critical 
period.  Despite  the  discontent  of  the  radicals  and  the  dis 
trust  of  the  leaders  even  of  his  own  party,  and  in  the  face  of 
the  tearful  protests  of  the  emotional  " peace  Republicans" 
of  the  Greeley  type,  who  were  overcome  by  the  sacrifice 
of  thousands  of  precious  lives  in  the  campaigns  in  which 
Grant  in  Virginia  and  Sherman  in  Georgia  were  at  last 
co-operating  to  a  common  end,  Lincoln,  early  in  June,  had 
been  overwhelmingly  renominated  for  the  Presidency  on 
the  first  ballot.  Here  was  further  proof,  if  any  were  needed, 
of  how  much  better  Lincoln's  character  and  aims  were 
understood  by  the  mass  of  the  Republican  party  than  by 
the  Washington  politicians  and  the  New  York  editors. 
His  moral  courage,  moreover,  was  equal  to  the  duty,  even 
under  the  threatening  conditions  which,  in  the  lack  of  de 
cisive  victories  for  the  Union  forces,  overhung  his  prospects 
for  re-election,  of  issuing  a  call  for  half  a  million  more 
men  to  fill  the  depleted  ranks  of  Grant's  and  Sherman's 
battalions,  well  knowing  that  the  conscription  would  have 
again  to  be  resorted  to  in  order  to  meet  this  demand,  and 
with  the  recollection  of  the  draft  riots  in  New  York  the 
previous  summer  still  fresh  in  his  mind. 


•^e*^    /**&rt*r-w     fH'     ttj"   fl^** 


&t+*L>r<fJt/ 


FAC-SIMILE   OF  PRESIDENT  LINCOLN'S  LETTER   TO   MRS.   BIXBY, 
OF   BOSTON. 


1 98  CIVIL  WAR 

The  news  of  three  Union  victories,  however,  came  op 
portunely  to  make  Lincoln's  re-election  certain  by  refuting 
emphatically  the  contention  in  the  Democratic  platform 
on  which  McClellan  was  nominated,  in  August,  but  which 
he  repudiated,  that  the  war  was  a  failure.  For  it  was 
early  in  the  same  month  that  Farragut  destroyed  the  Con 
federate  forts  and  war-vessels  in  Mobile  Bay.  A  few  weeks 
later  Sherman,  having  forced  Johnston  steadily  back  from 
Dalton,  defeated  Hood,  whom  President  Davis  had  put  in 
Johnston's  place,  in  a  fierce  battle  before  Atlanta  and  capt 
ured  the  city.  And  at  about  the  same  time  Sheridan,  in 
several  spirited  engagements,  destroyed  Early's  force  in  the 
Shenandoah  Valley,  relieving  Washington  thenceforth  from 
all  danger  of  an  attack  from  that  quarter.  Grant,  mean 
while,  had  forced  Lee  back,  slowly  but  with  the  sureness  of 
implacable  fate,  by  constantly  turning  his  right  flank,  to 
the  defenses  to  the  east  and  southeast  of  Richmond,  where 
he  held  him  in  a  vice-like  grip.  The  bloody  battle-fields  of 
the  Wilderness,  Spottsylvania,  and  Cold  Harbor,  on  which 
tens  of  thousands  of  lives  were  lost,  attested  both  the  ag 
gressive  fierceness  with  which  this  onward  movement  was 
made  by  Grant  and  the  stubborn  valor  with  which  every 
foot  of  the  way  was  contested  by  the  Confederates  under 
Lee.  » 

At  last  victory  for  the  Union  forces  was  in  the  air,  and 
the  Republican  campaign  emphasized  at  once  the  deter 
mination  of  the  Republicans  as  a  party  to  carry  the  war 
through  to  the  end  and  the  hopeful  feeling  that  at  last 
the  end  was  in  sight.  The  Republicans  secured  two  hun 
dred  and  twelve  presidential  electors,  the  Democrats,  only 
twenty-one.  The  popular  vote,  however,  of  2,330,552 


COLLAPSE  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY  199 

Republicans  to  1,835,985  Democrats,  shows  more  clearly 
than  the  electoral  vote  the  relative  strength  of  the  two 
parties.  Handicapped  though  he  was  by  the  Democratic 
platform,  with  its  peace  plank  and  its  declaration  that  the 
war  was  a  failure,  McClellan,  running  on  his  war  record, 
polled  not  far  from  two  million  votes.  By  the  adoption 
early  in  1865  of  the  thirteenth  amendment  to  the  Consti 
tution  the  Republicans  in  Congress  made  evident  to  the 
world  their  further  determination,  as  one  of  the  purposes 
of  the  war,  to  destroy  slavery  throughout  the  United  States 
and  to  make  its  revival  in  any  form  or  at  any  time  impos 
sible. 

The  collapse  of  the  Confederacy  was  due  to  exhaustion 
through  starvation — starvation  in  men  and  in  money,  as 
well  as  in  food,  clothing  and  all  the  other  supplies  neces 
sary  to  support  a  people  and  to  carry  on  war.  Beginning 
the  battle  of  the  Wilderness  on  May  5,  1864,  with  sixty-one 
thousand  men,  Lee  surrendered  fewer  than  twenty-seven 
thousand  at  Appomattox  Court  House  on  April  9,  1865. 
By  casualties,  captures  and  desertions  he  had  lost  more  than 
half  of  his  army.  In  the  ten  days  preceding  the  surrender 
no  fewer  than  nineteen  thousand  Confederate  soldiers  had 
been  captured  by  Grant's  forces.  It  is  no  reflection  on  the 
loyalty  of  these  men  to  surmise  that  not  a  few  of  them  were 
willing  captives,  for  it  was  not  in  human  nature  to  expect 
that  men  would  longer  risk  their  lives  for  a  cause  which,  it 
was  perfectly  evident,  was  irretrievably  lost. 

The  South,  moreover,  was  bankrupt  in  money  and  sup 
plies  as  well  as  in  men.  Only  small  returns  were  secured 
from  Confederate  bonds  sold  abroad,  and  the  purchasing 
power  of  the  paper  currency  issued  from  time  to  time  by  Mr. 


200  CIVIL  WAR 

Davis's  government  grew  steadily  less  and  less  until,  in  the 
spring  of  1864,  a  coat  cost  three  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  in 
Richmond,  a  pair  of  shoes  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
dollars,  a  bushel  of  potatoes  twenty-five  dollars,  and  a 
pound  of  butter  fifteen  dollars.  Hundreds  of  thousands 
of  bales  of  cotton  were  locked  up  and  made  worthless  by 
the  Union  blockade;  English  intervention,  upon  which  the 
South  so  confidently  relied,  had  proved  to  be  a  delusion; 
no  material  or  effective  help  had  come  to  the  Confederates 
from  their  sympathizers  among  the  copperheads  of  the 
North.  An  agricultural  people,  almost  entirely  without 
manufactures,  eight  million  in  numbers,  owning  nearly  four 
million  slaves,  had  exhausted  their  resources  and  them 
selves  fighting  a  manufacturing  and  agricultural  people 
numbering  nineteen  millions,  so  rich  that  they  could  supply 
the  federal  government  with  more  than  two  million  dollars 
a  day  for  four  years  with  which  to  prosecute  the  war. 

Thus  weakened,  the  Confederacy  was  crushed  between 
Grant's  tenacious  aggressiveness  in  pursuing  Lee,  and  Sher 
man's  energy  in  breaking  the  back,  so  to  speak,  of  the  South 
at  Atlanta,  and  in  sweeping  thence,  confident  and  buoyant, 
with  his  army  of  sixty  thousand  veterans  through  Georgia 
and  the  Carolinas,  where  he  held  Johnston,  now  restored  to 
the  command  of  a  hastily-gathered  force,  at  bay  until  Lee's 
surrender  made  further  resistance  useless.  In  the  great 
conflict  thus  brought  to  an  end  the  South  developed  six 
generals  who  distinguished  themselves — Lee,  " Stonewall" 
Jackson,  the  two  Johnstons,  Albert  Sidney  and  Joseph  E., 
and  the  two  cavalry  leaders,  Forrest  and  Stuart,  and  the 
North  five  who  stood  pre-eminent  among  their  fellows — 
Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan,  Meade,  and  Thomas;  the  de- 


202  CIVIL  WAR 

feat  of  Hood  by  Thomas  before  Nashville  in  December, 
1864,  having  contributed  vitally  to  the  success  of  the  cam 
paign  which  Grant  and  Sherman  were  waging.  It  was  the 
misfortune  of  the  Confederacy  to  lose  three  of  these  great 
captains;  Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  early  in  the  war  at 
Shiloh,  Jackson  at  Chancellorsville,  and  Stuart  in  an  en 
gagement  near  Richmond,  in  1864.  They  had  successors 
but  no  equals. 

The  extent  to  which  President  Davis's  traits  of  character 
and  idiosyncrasies  of  temperament  contributed  to  the  down 
fall  of  the  Confederacy  can  only  be  conjectured.  Auto 
cratic  in  temper  and  tenacious  of  all  of  the  rights  which  the 
Confederate  constitution  bestowed  upon  him,  he  kept  a 
firm  control  of  all  military  operations,  and  indulged  his  per 
sonal  likes  and  dislikes  in  appointments  and  removals  with, 
no  doubt,  an  honest  belief  that  he  was  acting  always  in  the 
best  interest  of  the  government  of  which  he  was  the  head. 
Although  he  was  held  mainly  responsible  by  his  own  people 
for  the  disasters  which,  one  by  one,  overwhelmed  the  Con 
federacy  toward  the  end  of  the  war,  history  will  probably 
confirm  Lee's  generous  judgment  that,  on  the  whole,  he  did 
as  well  as  any  man  could  have  done  in  the  same  place.  If 
he  had  had  the  wisdom  or  the  courage  to  stake  all  on  a  single 
mighty  blow — to  accept,  that  is,  Lee's  daring  project  for  a 
concentration  of  all  the  Confederate  forces  for  an  over 
whelming  invasion  of  the  North,  the  whole  course  of  the 
war  and  the  fate  of  the  nation  might  possibly  have  been 
changed.  To  leave  the  Gulf  states  thus  open  to  unopposed 
invasion  and  devastation  was  a  greater  responsibility,  how 
ever,  than  the  Confederate  President  was  willing  to  bear. 
He  preferred  to  cherish  the  delusive  hope  that  English 


RELATIVE   NUMBERS   AND   LOSSES  203 

intervention  would  come  to  the  aid  of  the  South  in  its  her 
culean  struggle  for  independence. 

The  total  cost  of  the  war  to  the  North  is  wellnigh  incal 
culable.  The  sum  total  would  include  bonds  issued  from 
time  to  time  by  the  government  and  bought  by  the  people 
to  the  amount  of  nearly  three  billion  dollars,  and  a  large 
percentage  also  of  the  eight  hundred  million  dollars  re 
ceived  from  duties — internal  revenue  and  customs,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  heavy  war  debts  incurred  by  states,  counties, 
cities  and  towns.  The  South  was  literally  impoverished, 
the  value  of  its  slave  population,  estimated  roughly  at  two 
billions  of  dollars  in  1861,  being  wiped  out  at  a  stroke. 

At  the  end  of  the  war  the  Union  forces  numbered  not  far 
from  a  million  men ;  those  of  the  Confederacy  had  dwindled 
to  scarcely  a  fifth  of  that  number.  The  whole  number  of 
individuals  in  service  in  the  Union  army  and  navy  during 
the  Civil  War  was  estimated  in  1905  by  the  Adjutant-Gen 
eral's  office  to  have  been  2,213,365.  The  estimates  of  the 
total  number  in  the  service  of  the  Confederacy  vary  from 
600,000  to  1,500,000.  A  fair  consideration,  however,  of  the 
facts  given  by  Thomas  L.  Livermore  in  his  Numbers  and 
Losses  in  the  Civil  War  in  America  leads  to  the  belief  that 
the  total  number  of  enlistments  in  the  Confederate  army 
was  not  far  from  1,200,000.  From  this  estimate  deduc 
tions  would  have  to  be  made  for  re-enlistments  which  might 
bring  the  total  number  of  men  who  served  in  the  Confed 
erate  army  down  to  950,000  or  perhaps  900,000.  Most 
southern  writers  contend  that  the  actual  number  was  be 
tween  600,000  and  700,000.  These,  however,  are  obviously 
underestimates.  For,  as  Charles  Francis  Adams  in  his 
Studies  Military  and  Diplomatic  has  pointed  out,  the  Con- 


204  CIVIL  WAR 

federacy,  under  any  recognized  method  of  computation, 
contained  within  itself,  first  and  last,  some  1,350,000  white 
men  capable  of  doing  military  duty;  and  to  maintain  that 
only  about  one-half  of  this  possible  force  was  utilized  proves 
too  much — proves  that  the  South  was  lacking  in  loyalty  to 
its  cause,  which  is  the  reverse  of  the  truth. 

This  preponderance  of  men  on  the  side  of  the  North  was 
in  large  part  neutralized  by  the  necessity  the  Union  gen 
erals  were  under  of  detaching  troops  constantly  to  guard 
long  lines  of  communications  and  to  garrison  strategic 
points  as  they  advanced,  in  ever-contracting  circles,  into 
the  heart  of  the  South,  and  by  the  number  of  men  on 
the  Union  side  who  were  employed  in  blockade  service. 
Mr.  Livermore's  figures  showing  the  number  of  men  en 
gaged  on  each  side  in  the  more  important  battles  of  the 
war  go  far  to  prove  that,  owing  to  the  large  require 
ments  of  these  allied  services,  the  forces  actually  engaged 
were  much  more  evenly  matched  than  is  generally  sup 
posed  to  have  been  the  case.  Thus  in  forty-eight  of  the 
more  important  battles  of  the  war,  beginning  with  Shiloh 
and  ending  with  the  Appomattox  campaign,  the  aggre 
gate  numbers  of  men  engaged  were,  on  the  Union  side, 
1,575,033,  and  on  the  Confederate  side,  1,243,528,  repre 
senting  approximately  a  ratio  of  fifty-five  to  forty-five. 
This  ratio  is  maintained  also  for  the  relative  total  numbers 
of  men  actually  engaged  in  the  half-dozen  great  battles  in 
which  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  and  the  Army  of  Northern 
Virginia  took  part — the  Seven  Days'  battle,  Antietam, 
Fredericksburg,  Chancellorsville,  Gettysburg  and  the  Wil 
derness — the  figures  being  555,000  men  on  the  Union  side 
as  against  413,200  on  the  Confederate  side.  Mr.  Liv- 


bn     -w 


<     cu 

*l 


w  I 

1 1 

ii 

W      rt 


. 
O   _ 


206  CIVIL   WAR 

ermore  estimates  the  total  number  of  killed  and  wounded 
in  the  war  among  the  Union  men  to  have  been  385,000, 
and  among  the  Confederates  329,000. 

And  what  were  the  fruits  of  the  war  for  which  such  an 
awful  price  in  blood  and  treasure  had  been  paid?  The 
extinction  of  the  institution  of  slavery  and  of  the  doctrine 
of  state  sovereignty  as  causes  of  anger  and  strife  between 
the  North  and  the  South;  the  establishment  for  all  time  of 
the  federal  authority  as  supreme  under  the  Constitution; 
the  revelation  of  the  power  of  democracy  to  preserve  its 
empire  intact;  and,  finally,  the  substitution  in  the  South  of 
industrial  development  under  freedom  for  moral  lethargy 
and  agricultural  stagnation  under  slavery. 

The  assassination  of  President  Lincoln,  a  few  days  only 
after  the  surrender  of  Lee  at  Appomattox,  was  a  tragic  cli 
max  to  the  colossal  struggle  which  had  been  in  progress  for 
four  years,  and  brought  to  an  untimely  end  the  career  of  a 
remarkable  man,  a  genuine  son  of  the  soil  and  the  ripest 
product  of  the  moral  forces  of  the  democracy  of  the  young 
nation.  His  mission,  as  he  understood  it,  was  to  preserve 
the  Union,  and,  with  a  singleness  of  purpose  as  rare  among 
public  men  as  a  rule  as  it  was  natural  to  him  as  an  indi 
vidual,  he  subordinated  all  selfish  and  personal  considera 
tions  to  the  attainment  of  this  great  end.  To  him  men  were 
nothing  except  as  they  could  be  used  to  advance  the  great 
cause  which  the  people  had  placed  in  his  keeping.  Patient 
and  self-contained  yet  resolute  and  even  masterful,  he  was 
a  silent  but  powerful  force  that  made  for  righteousness, 
against  which  the  envy  and  the  malice  of  the  ambitious  and 
the  selfish,  as  well  as  the  hysteria  of  the  weaklings  and  the 
panic-stricken,  broke  impotently.  His  character  and  his 


LINCOLN'S   CHARACTER  AND   TEMPERAMENT     207 

temperament,  apparently  so  simple  and  yet  so  tantalizingly 
elusive,  will  remain  for  all  time  a  subject  of  fascinating 
study.  And  among  the  imperishable  records  which  he  has 
left  as  a  basis  for  such  study  none  will  be  found  of  more 
abiding  value  as  a  reflection  of  his  lofty  spirit  than  the 
Gettysburg  address,  unmatched  in  American  literature  for 
nobility  of  thought  and  for  simplicity  and  beauty  of  phrase. 


XVII 
RECONSTRUCTION  AND  CORRUPTION 

THE  demoralizing  effects  of  a  great  civil  war  upon  national 
character  were  strikingly  illustrated  during  the  decade 
following  the  restoration  of  peace.  Old  standards  of  right 
living  and  right  thinking  became  blurred  or  entirely  ob 
scured  in  the  smoke  that  was  wafted  from  scores  of  fiercely 
contested  battle-fields,  and  men's  worst  passions,  long 
repressed  by  the  conventions  of  an  orderly  civilization, 
swayed  their  minds  and  governed  their  actions.  To  ex 
travagance  and  waste,  which  were  the  natural  accompani 
ments  and  consequences  of  war,  were  added  bribery  and 
corruption  among  federal,  state  and  city  officials  so  flagrant 
as  to  make  honest  men  hang  their  heads  in  shame  and  almost 
in  despair,  when,  in  1876,  the  nation  gathered  in  Philadel 
phia  to  celebrate  the  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence. 

This  high  tide  of  official  knavery  and  corruption  was 
reached  during  the  two  terms  of  General  Grant  as  President. 
A  poor  reader  of  character  and  drawn  to  rather  than  repelled 
by  men  of  uncultivated  tastes,  Grant,  in  his  simplicity, 
honesty  and  credulity,  became  the  dupe  of  more  than  one 
designing  scamp  who  used  his  official  position  to  further 
his  own  ends,  bringing  disgrace  and  humiliation  upon  his 
unsuspecting  chief.  The  conditions,  it  must  be  admitted, 
however,  were  peculiar.  Corruption  was  a  disease  of  the 
time,  and  a  stronger  man  than  Grant  proved  to  be  might 

208 


DEMORALIZING    EFFECTS   OF   CIVIL  WAR      209 

have  been  powerless  to  counteract  its  subtle  influence.  The 
enormous  requirements  of  the  government  during  four  years 
of  war,  together  with  the  high  tariff,  had  given  an  artificial 
stimulus  to  industries  of  all  kinds,  had  made  manufacturers 
and  contractors  rich  beyond  their  wildest  dreams,  and  had 
created  a  shoddy  aristocracy  based  on  wealth  alone.  The 
air,  moreover,  was  feverish  with  speculative  schemes,  the 
possibilities  of  which  threw  men  usually  cool-headed  off 
their  mental  and  moral  balance  and  made  them  both  ava 
ricious  and  unscrupulous.  The  extension  of  railroads  into 
new  grain-growing  territory  in  the  middle  and  far  West  and 
into  the  coal  and  iron  fields,  with  the  expansion  and  re- 
equipment  of  old  roads  to  enable  them  to  meet  modern 
requirements,  had  the  effect  of  creating  powerful  corpora 
tions  in  need  both  of  favorable  legislation  and  of  freedom 
from  legislative  interference  in  carrying  out  their  far-reach 
ing  plans.  Too  often  also  loyalty  to  the  cardinal  doctrines 
of  the  Republican  party,  the  enfranchisement  of  the  negro 
and  the  suppression  of  the  " rebel  vote,"  was  accepted  as 
sufficient  to  excuse  irregularity  in  official  conduct,  even 
when  the  obvious  motive  was  personal  gain. 

The  facts,  however,  do  not  sustain  the  theory  that  hatred 
of  the  South  and  a  desire  for  further  revenge  upon  the 
prostrate  people  of  that  section  were  the  principal  motives 
which  led  the  Republicans  to  give  the  ballot  to  the  negro. 
To  the  Republicans  then  in  Congress  the  peril  to  the  nation 
involved  in  a  possible  union  between  the  southern  whites 
in  control  of  their  state  governments  and  the  copperheads 
of  the  North  was  very  real.  The  ex-Confederates,  we  now 
know,  were  not  deluding  themselves  with  any  such  scheme 
to  recover  possession  of  the  national  government.  Ex- 


210        RECONSTRUCTION  AND   CORRUPTION 

hausted  and  ruined  by  the  war,  they  recognized  that  both 
slavery  and  secession  were  dead  beyond  any  hope  of  res 
urrection.  They  accepted  frankly  the  thirteenth  amend 
ment  to  the  Constitution  abolishing  slavery  in  the  United 
States.  The  North  was  still  suspicious,  however,  and  their 
conduct  in  passing  through  their  state  legislatures,  imme 
diately  after  the  close  of  the  war,  laws  regulating  negro 
labor,  vagrancy,  etc.,  in  refusing  to  accept  the  fourteenth 
amendment  conferring  the  rights  of  citizenship  upon  the 
negro  and  putting  pressure  upon  the  states  to  allow  him 
to  vote,  while  at  the  same  time  disfranchising  certain  ex- 
Confederate  soldiers,  and  finally  in  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  out 
rages  designed  to  frighten  negroes  from  voting  under  the 
rights  bestowed  upon  them  by  the  fifteenth  amendment, 
was  conclusive  evidence  to  the  Republicans  in  Congress  that 
the  ex-Confederates  were  still  at  heart  enemies  of  the  Union 
and  of  the  negro. 

In  the  perspective  of  half  a  century  the  bestowal  of  the 
suffrage  upon  the  negroes  is  generally  regarded  as  having 
been  a  grave  political  mistake.  The  public  men  of  any 
period,  however,  are  entitled  to  be  judged  by  the  light  of 
the  times  in  which  they  were  obliged  to  do  their  work  and 
not  by  that  of  subsequent  events.  In  the  view,  then,  of  men 
like  Thaddeus  Stevens  and  Charles  Sumner,  the  enfranchise 
ment  of  the  negroes  was  the  only  way  by  which  the  political 
power  of  the  South  for  possible  evil  could  be  broken,  unless 
the  military  occupation  provided  by  the  Reconstruction 
act  of  March,  1867,  and  by  the  force  bills,  so-called,  of  a 
later  date,  was  to  continue  indefinitely.  This  view  was  not 
radical  at  that  time.  It  was  shared  by  men  of  the  highest 
patriotism  who  had  no  selfish  interest,  political  or  other- 


gw.Zf^£_^ 

f  OJUUM^A,   JS. 

THE    STAT|?  \jJREA^ejREt$l, 

Vill  pay  to  the  Order  of 


The  above  cut  represents  the  fate  in  store  for  those  great  pests  of  Southern  society— 
,«  oLpet-bagger  and  scalawag-if  found  in  Dixie's  land  after  the  break  of  day  on  the, 


EVIDENCE  IN  KU  KLUX   KLAN   CASES  BEFORE  THE 
CONGRESSIONAL  COMMITTEE. 

Above:    Fac-simile  of  a  "gratuity"  voted  to  Governor  Moses  by  the  South 
Carolina  Legislature,  in  1871.     Below:   A  newspaper  clipping. 


212        RECONSTRUCTION  AND   CORRUPTION 

wise,  at  stake.  "The  bare  idea,"  wrote  John  Jay  to  Sal 
mon  P.  Chase,  "of  the  rebel  states  casting  their  votes  for 
election  in  1868 — the  blacks  being  excluded — and  giving 
us  again  a  Democratic  and  rebel  government,  is  altogether 
intolerable,  and  yet  that  is  what  the  northern  Democracy 
begin  to  hope  for  and  expect." 

Many  people  in  the  North,  moreover,  for  whom  Sumner 
was  the  spokesman,  were  influenced  in  favor  of  negro 
suffrage  by  humanitarian  motives  and  by  a  belief  that 
the  negro,  under  protection  and  encouragement,  would 
develop  into  a  fairly  intelligent  and  useful  voter.  The 
narrow-minded  dogmatism,  too,  of  the  President,  Andrew 
Johnson,  a  southern  states-rights  man  of  the  old  type, 
raised  to  his  high  position  by  the  assassination  of  Lincoln, 
contributed  its  share  to  create  the  conditions  which  seemed 
to  make  the  enfranchisement  of  the  negroes  necessary  in 
order  to  insure  the  continued  safety  of  the  republic. 

Under  these  conditions  it  was  perhaps  not  unnatural  that 
the  North,  relieved  at  last  from  the  prolonged  strain  of  the 
great  conflict  and  turning  its  mind  again  to  industrial  affairs, 
should  receive  with  mild  incredulity  and  with  more  or  less 
indifference  the  reports  of  the  wholesale  robbery  to  which 
many  of  the  southern  states  were  subjected  during  the 
humiliating  period  of  negro  rule  following  the  enforcement 
of  the  Reconstruction  act,  when  the  "carpet-baggers"  and 
"scalawags,"  as  the  white  Republicans  from  the  North  and 
of  the  South  were  respectively  termed,  were  in  full  control 
of  the  state  governments.  Ninety  per  cent  of  the  plunder 
derived  from  this  orgy  of  negro  legislation  went  into  the 
pockets  of  these  greedy  and  unscrupulous  white  adventur 
ers  whom  the  ignorant  hordes  of  negroes,  intoxicated  by 


RESTORATION   OF   WHITE   LEADERSHIP       213 

their  sudden  rise  to  their  new  estate  as  voters  and  office 
holders,  followed  blindly  as  representing  the  party  which 
had  delivered  them  from  bondage. 

The  turn  of  the  tide  of  sentiment  in  the  North  came  in 
1872,  and  was  reflected  by  the  action  of  Congress  in  passing 
the  General  Amnesty  bill  restoring  to  the  great  majority  of 
the  ex-Confederates  their  full  political  rights.  Much  of  the 
bitterness  of  feeling  which  the  war  had  left  had  died  out  in 
the  meantime,  there  was  less  distrust  of  the  designs  of  the 
southern  leaders,  and  business  affairs  had  acquired  all- 
engrossing  importance.  The  feeling  gained  ground  stead 
ily  that  the  southern  states  would  be  obliged  to  solve  as 
best  they  could  the  difficult  problem  of  negro  suffrage. 
Hence  the  North  regarded  with  concern,  but  with  a  help 
lessness  which  the  presence  of  federal  troops  in  the  South 
was  powerless  to  avert,  the  successful  efforts  which  the 
southern  whites  made  in  the  next  few  years  to  wrest  the 
control  of  their  state  governments  from  the  negroes  and 
their  disreputable  white  leaders.  This  result  was  accom 
plished  by  a  frank  resort  to  intimidation,  bribery,  and 
fraud,  by  which  the  negro  vote  was  driven  or  beguiled 
away  from  the  polls  or  neutralized. 

Meanwhile  the  demoralizing  influences  already  referred 
to  were  at  work  in  the  North,  fostered  by  the  preoccupation 
of  business  men  in  their  urgent  private  affairs  and  by  the 
tyranny  of  partisan  politics.  Tweed  and  his  rascally  Tam 
many  associates  got  control  of  the  government  first  of  the 
city  and  then  of  the  state  of  New  York  by  fraudulently 
creating  subservient  voters  out  of  fresh  immigrants  and  by 
legislative  bribery.  During  the  four  years  from  1868  to 
1871  the  members  of  this  corrupt  ring  stole  from  the  city 


2i4        RECONSTRUCTION  AND   CORRUPTION 

a  sum  variously  estimated  at  from  fifty  to  two  hundred 
millions  of  dollars,  having  the  aid  in  this  dastardly  business 
of  three  compliant  judges.  In  the  summer  of  1871  the 
thieves  fell  out  and  the  facts  showing  the  extent  to  which 
and  the  methods  by  which  the  city  had  been  plundered  for 
years  were  disclosed.  The  city  once  aroused  was  soon  res 
cued,  and  the  robbers  were  driven  into  exile  or  thrown  into 
jail. 

Tammany  Hall  under  Tweed  was  Democratic,  but  the 
gas  ring  which  nourished  in  Philadelphia  and  which,  in 
the  decade  from  1870  to  1881,  added  fifty  millions  to  the 
debt  of  the  city  without  any  corresponding  advantages  to 
its  citizens,  was  Republican  throughout.  Here  again  the 
management  of  the  city  departments,  with  limitless  oppor 
tunities  for  jobbery  and  plunder,  was  complacently  left  by 
the  business  men  to  the  politicians,  who  in  turn  provided 
at  every  election  a  large  Republican  vote  and  so  safe 
guarded  the  protective  tariff  upon  which  the  Pennsylvania 
industries  depended  for  a  considerable  percentage  of  their 
profits.  Compared  with  New  York  the  admixture  of  for 
eign-born  voters  in  Philadelphia  was  slight.  In  two  great 
American  cities,  therefore,  where  the  conditions  at  this 
period  were  entirely  different  the  same  pernicious  influences 
were  at  work  to  the  same  end.  It  was  not  until  1881  that 
Philadelphia  took  effective  steps  to  free  itself  from  the 
mastery  of  this  corrupt  ring,  with  its  state  and  federal  alli 
ances. 

National  as  well  as  city  and  state  affairs  afforded  abun 
dant  evidence  also  of  the  serious  moral  malady  from  which 
the  country  was  suffering.  Grant's  first  term  as  President 
did  not  seem  to  enlarge  his  knowledge  of  human  nature  or 


2i6        RECONSTRUCTION  AND   CORRUPTION 

to  put  him  on  his  guard  against  avaricious  conspirators  who 
might  be  scheming  to  use  him  to  their  advantage.  In  the 
summer  of  1869  he  guilelessly  allowed  himself  to  be  enter 
tained,  while  on  his  way  to  the  Peace  Jubilee  in  Boston  and 
later  in  New  York  City,  by  Jay  Gould,  and  James  Fisk,  Jr., 
notorious  even  then  for  his  profligacy  and  vulgarity,  who 
together  had  possessed  themselves  of  the  Erie  Railroad  and 
who  were  intimate  with  Tweed,  Sweeney  and  the  Tammany 
ring  judges,  Barnard,  Cardozo  and  McCunn. 

Gould's  purpose  in  cultivating  Grant's  acquaintance  was 
to  guard  against  any  interference  by  the  government  in  his 
audacious  plot  to  corner  the  market  for  gold,  speculation 
in  which  at  that  time  was  very  active.  Grant's  unsus 
picious  nature  made  him  the  easy  prey  of  this  wily  schemer, 
who,  with  the  help  of  Fisk,  forced  up  the  price  of  gold  until, 
on  the  famous  Black  Friday,  September  24,  it  reached  160, 
when  the  government  began  to  sell  gold  from  its  surplus  and 
thus  broke  the  market.  Gould,  forewarned  that  at  last 
his  purpose  was  understood  by  the  authorities  at  Washing 
ton,  saved  himself  by  beginning  to  sell  gold  at  the  critical 
moment  while  Fisk  remained  a  buyer  and  was  overwhelmed 
by  contracts  which  he  could  not  fulfil.  The  financial  and 
mercantile  community  meanwhile  suffered  embarrassments 
and  losses,  and  business  interests  throughout  the  country 
were  disturbed  and  injured. 

Severer  still  was  the  blow  which  Grant's  reputation  re 
ceived  through  the  revelations  of  the  pecuniary  interest 
which  his  private  secretary,  Babcock,  had  in  the  frauds 
practised  upon  the  government  by  the  St.  Louis  whiskey 
ring,  made  up  of  distillers,  internal  revenue  officers  and 
officials  in  Washington.  Through  the  powerful  influence 


FRAUDS  AMONG  PUBLIC   OFFICIALS          217 

of  his  distinguished  chief,  whose  habit  it  was  to  stand  by 
his  friends  through  evil  as  well  as  through  good  report, 
Babcock  was  acquitted  of  the  charge  of  conspiracy  to  de 
fraud  the  revenue.  The  evidence,  however,  left  it  reason 
ably  clear  that  he  had  received  a  share  of  the  ill-gotten 
profits  of  the  ring  and  he  was  forced  to  vacate  his  office. 
The  frauds  began  as  early  as  1870  or  1871,  and  among  the 
men  who  were  perpetrating  them  the  supposition  was  sedu 
lously  cultivated  that  the  stolen  money,  or  a  considerable 
proportion  of  it,  went  into  a  campaign  fund  to  secure  the 
renomination  of  Grant  for  a  second  and,  later,  for  even  a 
third  term  as  President.  Some  of  it  may  have  been  de 
voted  to  this  purpose,  but  no  evidence  was  ever  forthcom 
ing  to  show  that  Grant,  if  he  knew  of  this  fund,  was  aware 
of  the  illegitimate  source  whence  at  least  a  part  of  it  was 
derived. 

The  climax  of  the  President's  humiliation  was  reached 
when  in  March,  1876,  only  a  few  months  before  the  Repub 
lican  national  convention  was  to  meet,  facts  were  laid 
before  him  proving  conclusively  that  General  Belknap,  who 
had  been  his  Secretary  of  War  since  1869,  had  been  receiv 
ing  since  November,  1870,  a  share,  perhaps  twenty  thou 
sand  dollars  in  all,  of  the  profits  of  the  lucrative  office  of 
the  post-trader  at  Fort  Sill,  Indian  Territory.  Belknap 
resigned  his  office  in  disgrace  before  proceedings  could  be 
begun  against  him,  and  was  allowed  to  disappear  from  the 
public  view. 

Other  revelations,  meanwhile,  of  the  prevalence  of  bri 
bery  and  corruption  among  national  legislators,  heretofore 
supposed  to  be  above  suspicion,  added  to  the  embarrass 
ment  of  the  Republicans  and  deepened  the  sickening  sense 


2i8        RECONSTRUCTION  AND   CORRUPTION 

of  despair  which  honest  men  throughout  the  nation  felt. 
These  revelations,  showing  how  insidious  and  mischievous 
an  influence  had  been  exercised  for  years  among  certain 
senators  and  representatives  at  Washington  by  the  great 
railroad  corporations,  came  to  light  both  before  and  after 
the  financial  panic  of  1873,  with  which  they  were  indirectly 
connected. 

This  panic  was  due  to  various  causes,  among  which  were 
the  exhausting  effect  and  the  enormous  waste  of  the  war 
and  the  destruction  by  fire  of  a  large  part  of  Chicago,  in 
October,  1871,  and  of  Boston,  in  1872,  with  a  total  esti 
mated  loss  amounting  to  the  huge  sum  of  $273,000,000. 
The  principal  cause,  however,  was  the  speculative  expan 
sion  of  all  lines  of  business,  and  more  especially  of  railroad 
building,  in  the  years  following  the  Civil  War,  to  a  point 
where  it  was  impossible  for  the  country  to  finance  the 
projects  with  which  it  had  overloaded  itself.  The  average 
increase  in  railroad  building  during  the  four  years  from 
1865  to  1868,  inclusive,  was  only  a  little  over  two  thousand 
miles  annually.  In  the  next  four  years,  however,  more 
than  twenty-four  thousand  miles  were  built  or  relaid,  the 
steel  rails  produced  by  the  new  Bessemer  process  being 
used  largely  for  the  purpose.  Every  branch  of  allied  busi 
ness,  moreover,  was  pushed  during  this  period  to  its  utmost 
limit  to  keep  pace  with  the  demand.  Prices,  too,  rose  to 
abnormal  heights — steel  rails  one  hundred  and  twelve  dol 
lars  a  ton  and  pig-iron  forty-nine  dollars  a  ton.  The  com 
mercial  and  industrial  energy  of  the  country  had  far  outrun 
the  volume  of  capital  available  for  business  purposes. 

Recourse  in  this  emergency  was  had  to  foreign  capital 
obtained  through  the  sale  of  railroad  bonds,  but  even  this 


CREDIT-MOBILIER   SCANDAL  219 

fresh  supply  of  funds  was  not  enough  to  meet  the  urgent 
needs  of  the  time.  The  conditions  grew  more  and  more 
feverish  until  on  September  18  the  panic  began  with  the 
failure  of  Jay  Cooke  &  Co.,  the  financial  agents  of  the 
Northern  Pacific  Railway.  The  disastrous  effects  of  the 
commercial  crisis  which  followed  the  crash  in  Wall  Street 
were  felt  throughout  the  country,  and  fully  five  years 
passed  before  business  recovered  its  normal  tone. 

In  the  winter  before  this  financial  storm  broke  the  coun 
try  had  been  astonished  and  dismayed  by  the  disclosures  of 
wholesale  attempts  to  bribe  members  of  Congress  in  the 
interest  of  one  of  the  great  railroad  corporations,  the  Union 
Pacific,  by  the  distribution  through  Oakes  Ames,  a  repre 
sentative  from  Massachusetts,  of  stock  in  the  construction 
company  of  the  road,  called  the  Credit  Mobilier.  Several 
men  were  practically  ruined  by  these  disclosures,  the  chief 
among  them  being  Schuyler  Colfax,  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  from  Indiana  since  1854,  Speaker  of  the 
House  from  1863  "to  1869,  and  Vice-President  during  Grant's 
first  term.  What  amazed  and  appalled  the  country  was 
not  so  much  the  discovery  that  two  or  three  represent 
atives  and  a  senator  should  have  been  found  guilty  by 
the  investigating  committee  as  it  was  the  revelation  that 
men  like  Garfield,  Dawes  and  Henry  Wilson  were  regarded 
as  not  beyond  the  reach  of  the  tempter.  Dawes  and  Wilson 
were  guilty  only  of  impropriety;  Garfield  proved  his  inno 
cence  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  Ohio  constituency,  and  his 
election  later  to  the  Presidency  must  be  accepted  as  a  clean 
bill  of  moral  health  from  the  nation. 

Elaine  fared  less  well  in  defending  himself,  in  May  and 
June  of  1876,  from  the  charge  of  having  sold  to  the  Union 


220        RECONSTRUCTION  AND   CORRUPTION 

Pacific  and  two  other  railroad  companies,  at  a  far  higher 
price  than  their  real  value,  several  hundred  thousand  dol 
lars'  worth  of  bonds  of  the  Little  Rock  and  Fort  Smith  Rail 
road  with  which  he  had  become  burdened,  the  inference 
being  that  these  corporations  expected  him  as  a  conse 
quence  to  be  friendly  to  their  interests  as  Speaker  or  as  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  situation 
called  for  a  clear,  simple  statement  of  receipts  and  disburse 
ments,  fortified  by  cancelled  checks  and  other  ordinary 
documentary  evidence.  Elaine  met  it  with  a  passionate 
and  theatrical  outburst  of  fervid  rhetoric,  proclaiming  to 
the  world  his  entire  innocence  and  denouncing  the  "  rebel 
brigadiers"  who,  he  charged,  were  attempting  to  ruin  his 
character.  His  defense  of  his  conduct  convinced  his  friends 
and  admirers,  of  whom  he  had  many,  of  his  innocence  of 
wrong-doing,  but  did  not  convince  the  country  at  large. 
As  a  consequence  he  lost  the  Republican  nomination  for 
the  Presidency  in  1876  and  the  election  to  the  Presidency 
in  1884. 

By  reason,  therefore,  of  these  shocking  revelations  of 
bribery  and  corruption  in  official  circles  and  because  of  the 
depressed  state  of  business  following  the  panic  of  1873,  the 
Republicans  found  themselves  on  the  defensive  in  the 
Hayes-Tilden  campaign  of  1876,  at  the  close  of  Grant's  two 
terms.  They  could  point,  however,  to  two  acts  of  Grant's 
administration  which  reflected  great  credit  upon  him  and 
upon  the  party — first,  the  Treaty  of  Washington,  which  his 
Secretary  of  State,  Hamilton  Fish,  had  carried  to  a  suc 
cessful  conclusion  and  under  which,  as  has  already  been 
noted,  Great  Britain,  by  the  award  of  the  Geneva  Tribunal 
of  Arbitration,  was  compelled  to  pay  the  United  States 


INTIMIDATION   IN   THE   SOUTH  221 

fifteen  and  a  half  million  dollars  in  compensation  for  the 
depredations  of  the  Confederate  cruisers,  the  Alabama, 
Florida  and  Shenandoah;  and,  secondly,  Grant's  courageous 
veto  of  the  Inflation  bill,  by  which  it  was  proposed  to  in 
crease  the  volume  of  outstanding  greenbacks  from  $382,- 
000,000  to  $400,000,000.  The  resumption  of  specie  pay 
ments  did  not  take  place  until  1879,  but  this  veto  of  the 
Inflation  bill  was  most  serviceable  as  a  check  upon  the 
desire  of  the  West  and  South  to  attempt  to  cure  the  financial 
ills  of  the  time  by  the  simple  and  easy  expedient  of  printing 
more  government  money,  and  went  far  toward  leading 
the  country  back  to  principles  of  sound  national  finance. 

In  the  attempt  to  divert  attention  from  the  scandals  of 
the  Grant  administration  and  from  the  depressed  state  of 
business,  the  Republicans  made  the  horrors  of  the  "  bloody 
shirt" — the  assaults  upon  negroes  being  summarized  in  this 
lurid  phrase — the  danger  of  a  " solid  South"  and  the  dread 
of  the  "rebel  brigadiers"  in  Congress  the  issues  in  the 
Hayes  campaign,  and  on  those  issues  won  the  election 
through  the  grace  of  the  Electoral  Commission  in  awarding 
the  votes  of  South  Carolina,  Florida  and  Louisiana  to 
Hayes.  Early  in  1877  the  Florida  Democrats  recovered 
control  of  their  state  government;  and  soon  after  he  was 
inaugurated  President  Hayes  withdrew  the  federal  troops 
from  Florida  and  Louisiana,  the  only  remaining  states  in 
which  they  were  still  quartered,  thus  acknowledging  the 
utter  failure  of  the  policy  of  his  party,  adopted  a  decade 
earlier,  of  imposing  negro  rule  upon  the  old  slave  states  by 
force. 

Since  then  the  southern  whites,  with  the  tacit  acquies 
cence  of  the  North,  save  for  an  occasional  outburst  in  Con- 


222         RECONSTRUCTION  AND   CORRUPTION 

gress,  have  retained  possession  of  their  state  governments 
and  of  all  election  machinery,  local,  state  and  federal,  by 
a  resort  to  intimidation,  justifying  their  course  on  the 
ground  of  absolute  necessity,  if  the  intelligence,  wealth  and 
honesty,  instead  of  the  ignorance,  poverty  and  dishonesty, 
of  a  community,  were  to  rule.  "  We  hear  much,"  wrote  the 
late  Henry  W.  Grady,  of  the  Atlanta  Constitution,  "of  the 
intimidation  of  the  colored  vote  of  the  South.  There  is 
intimidation,  but  it  is  the  menace  of  the  compact  and  solid 
wealth  and  intelligence  of  a  great  social  system.  Against 
this  menace,  peaceful  and  majestic,  counter-organization 
cannot  stand.  That  is  why  the  negro  fails  to  vote  in  the 
South.  He  will  not  vote  except  under  persistent  and  sys 
tematic  and  inspiring  organization.  This  organization  can 
not  be  effected  or  maintained  against  a  powerful  and  united 
social  system  that  embraces  the  wealth  and  intelligence  of 
the  community." 

In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  amendments  to  the  Constitu 
tion  that  were  passed  in  order  to  secure  to  him  his  rights  as 
a  citizen,  the  negro  is  in  effect  disfranchised  throughout  the 
old  slave  states.  The  North  accepts  the  situation  with  only 
perfunctory  protests,  the  peril  which  seemed  so  threatening 
to  Stevens,  Sumner  and  their  associates  no  longer  existing. 


XVIII 
POLITICAL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  PROGRESS 

WITH  the  disappearance  of  slavery  and  the  " solid  South" 
as  issues  in  national  politics,  a  new  era  began  in  the  history 
of  the  American  people,  an  era  in  which  problems  in  eco 
nomics  and  finance  pressed  for  solution;  problems  arising 
from  the  rapid  increase  in  the  material  prosperity  of  the 
country  and  from  the  necessity  of  changes  in  the  laws  to 
meet  these  new  conditions. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  these  problems  was  the 
tariff.  The  Republican  party  committed  itself  to  a  pro 
tective  tariff  almost  at  the  very  beginning  of  its  history, 
in  the  platform  on  which  Lincoln  was  elected  President  in 
1860;  and  with  courage,  consistency  and  signal  ability  has 
advocated  a  protective  tariff  from  that  day  to  this.  The 
leaders  of  the  party  in  1860  realized  that  the  twenty-seven 
electoral  votes  of  Pennsylvania,  even  then  a  state  with 
large  and  valuable  manufacturing  interests,  especially  in 
iron  and  steel  and  their  products,  would  be  necessary  in 
order  to  insure  the  election  of  Lincoln.  A  plank  was  there 
fore  inserted  in  the  Republican  platform  declaring  that  a 
sound  policy  required  the  adjustment  of  import  duties  so 
as  "to  encourage  the  development  of  the  industrial  interests 
of  the  whole  country" — an  announcement  that  was  re 
ceived  with  enthusiasm  by  the  Pennsylvania  delegates  to 
the  convention.  This  declaration  of  a  protective  tariff 
policy  was  the  chief  influence  in  securing  the  electoral 

223 


224     POLITICAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL   PROGRESS 

votes  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey  for  Lincoln  in  the 
memorable  contest  of  1860,  overshadowing  in  importance 
even  slavery  as  an  issue  in  those  states. 

During  the  Civil  War  the  rates  of  duty  established  by 
the  Morrill  tariff  bill,  which  became  a  law  in  1861,  were 
raised  from  time  to  time  in  order  to  secure  much-needed 
revenue  to  meet  the  expenses  of  the  war  rather  than  to  pro 
vide  additional  protection  for  American  industries.  Hav 
ing  accustomed  themselves,  however,  to  these  high  rates 
and  having  enjoyed  the  i  .  r^/;  profits  obtainable  under 
them,  the  manufacturers  in  the  middle  Atlantic  and  New 
England  states  were  unwilling  to  have  them  lowered  when, 
in  1870,  the  demand  for  a  downward  revision  of  the  tariff 
made  itself  felt  among  the  Republicans  of  the  middle  West. 
So  powerful,  moreover,  had  these  industrial  interests  be 
come  and  so  close  was  the  alliance  which  they  had  estab 
lished  with  the  leaders  of  the  Republican  party,  that  they 
won  a  substantial  victory  by  preventing  any  general  or 
systematic  reduction  of  the  duties.  Again,  a  decade  later, 
the  agitation  against  the  high  war  duties,  as  they  were  still 
called,  under  the  shelter  of  which,  it  was  charged  by  the 
Democrats,  monopolies  were  being  fostered,  the  country's 
foreign  exports  were  languishing,  and  the  surplus  in  the 
national  treasury  was  being  augmented  to  dangerous  pro 
portions,  made  a  further  revision  of  the  tariff  necessary. 
The  new  tariff  bill  which  was  passed  in  1883  in  order  to 
quiet  this  agitation,  but  which  made  only  a  slight  modifi 
cation  in  the  protective  duties,  was  satisfactory  to  neither 
party. 

The  vote  by  which  this  measure  became  a  law  revealed 
one  fact,  however,  of  no  little  significance :  thirty-one  Dem- 


INFLUENCE   OF   HIGH-TARIFF   DEMOCRATS     225 

ocrats,  twenty-one  representatives  and  ten  senators,  voted 
with  the  Republicans  in  favor  of  maintaining  high  duties. 
From  this  time  on  the  protectionist  Democrats  from  the 
manufacturing  states,  at  first  of  the  North,  but,  of  late  years, 
of  the  South  as  well,  where  coal  and  iron  mines  have  been 
developed  and  where  many  cotton  and  other  mills  have 
been  built,  have  proved  to  be  the' most  useful  allies  of  the 
Republicans  in  maintaining  the  high  rates  of  duty.  Thus, 
while  the  Republican  party  has  always  been  practically 
united  on  this  question ;  *~*&i  the  desertion  in  recent 
years  of  the  Progressives,  so-called,  of  the  middle  West, 
the  Democracy  has  been  hopelessly  divided.  Theoretically 
committed  by  their  party  platforms  to  a  tariff  for  revenue 
only,  with  an  occasional  concession  in  the  form  of  "inci 
dental  protection"  to  American  industries,  the  Democrats 
of  the  most  influence  in  Congress,  men  of  the  type  of 
Randall  of  Pennsylvania,  Gorman  of  Maryland,  Brice  of 
Ohio,  and  Hill  of  New  York,  placed  the  business  inter 
ests  of  their  constituents  above  party  loyalty  and  above 
party  pledges,  and  more  than  once  united  with  the  Re 
publicans  in  order  to  prevent  any  material  downward 
revision  of  the  leading  tariff  schedules.  In  1884,  when  the 
Democrats  were  in  control  of  the  House,  no  fewer  than 
forty-one  Democratic  representatives,  under  the  leader 
ship  of  Samuel  J.  Randall,  voted  with  the  Republicans  and 
so  secured  the  defeat  of  the  Morrison  bill  providing  for  a 
horizontal  reduction  of  twenty  per  cent  from  the  rates 
established  by  the  tariff  act  of  the  previous  year. 

Cleveland  embodied  the  desire  of  the  rank  and  file  of 
his  party  to  have  the  tariff  duties  substantially  reduced, 
and  endeavored  in  each  of  his  terms  of  office,  and  more 


226     POLITICAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL   PROGRESS 

especially  in  the  second,  to  accomplish  this  end.  In  his 
first  term  a  Republican  Senate  blocked  his  efforts  to  secure 
the  passage  of  the  Mills  bill;  and  in  his  second  term,  when 
for  the  first  time  since  1856  both  houses  of  Congress  and  the 
President  were  Democratic,  Gorman,  Brice,  Hill  and  other 
Democratic  senators  united  with  Senator  Aldrich,  the 
astute  leader  of  the  Republicans,  to  render  the  Wilson  bill 
practically  harmless,  so  far  as  the  more  important  of  the 
protected  industries  were  concerned.  Disheartened  and 
discouraged  by  the  party  treachery  of  the  Democratic 
leaders,  Cleveland  allowed  the  bill  to  become  a  law  with 
out  his  signature. 

In  his  first  term  a  huge  surplus  in  the  national  treasury, 
largely  the  product  of  the  high  tariff  rates,  threatened  dan 
ger  to  the  business  interests  of  the  country  and  was  the 
excuse  for  the  Mills  bill.  When  he  came  into  power  for 
a  second  term  in  1893,  tne  McKinley  tariff  bill  having  been 
the  main  issue  in. the  campaign,  Cleveland  found  himself 
face  to  face  not  with  a  surplus  but  with  a  deficit  in  the 
treasury.  During  the  intervening  administration  of  Presi 
dent  Harrison  the  Republicans  had  disposed  effectually  of 
the  surplus.  New  pension  legislation  and  lavish  appro 
priations  for  river  and  harbor  bills,  for  public  buildings  and 
for  vessels  for  the  navy,  had  the  effect  of,  if  they  were  not 
deliberately  designed  for  the  express  purpose  of,  prevent 
ing  the  Democrats,  when  next  they  came  into  power,  from 
using  the  existence  of  a  dangerously  large  surplus  as  an 
argument  for  reducing  tariff  rates.  The  pension  legisla 
tion  of  this  period,  which  increased  the  annual  charge 
against  the  treasury  from  sixty-five  million  dollars  in  the 
opening  year  of  Cleveland's  first  term,  1885,  to  one  hundred 


POWER  OF   BUSINESS   INTERESTS  227 

and  thirty-nine  million  dollars  in  the  final  year  of  Har 
rison's  term,  1892,  was  effectively  cited  by  the  Democrats 
as  an  illustration  of  the  government  extravagance  and 
wastefulness  which  a  high  protective  tariff  engendered. 
It  was  the  depleted  condition  of  the  treasury  when  Cleve 
land  entered  upon  his  second  term  in  1893  tnat  enabled 
Gorman  and  Brice  to  base  their  public  opposition  to  the 
Wilson  bill  on  the  ground  that  its  operation  would  leave 
the  treasury  with  a  deficit  of  a  hundred  million  dollars. 

The  Wilson  bill  supplanted  the  high-tariff  McKinley  bill 
of  1 890  which  had  been  repudiated  by  the  country  in  the 
fall  elections  of  the  same  year  and  which  was  mainly 
instrumental  in  making  both  the  legislative  and  executive 
branches  of  the  government  Democratic  two  years  later. 
The  Dingley  tariff  bill  of  1897  and  the  Payne-Aldrich  bill 
of  1909  afforded  fresh  evidence  of  the  closeness  of  the  alli 
ance  between  the  protected  manufacturing  interests  and 
the  Republican  leaders  in  Congress.  The  Wilson  bill, 
partly  owing  to  the  depression  in  business  following  the 
panic  of  1893,  naci  not  proved  to  be  satisfactory,  and  the 
Republicans,  again  swept  into  power  in  1896  by  the  popu 
lar  revulsion  against  Bryan  and  free  silver,  substituted  for 
it  the  Dingley  tariff  bill.  As  in  the  Payne-Aldrich  bill  of  a 
dozen  years  later  some  schedules  were  modified  and  a  few 
raw  materials  were  placed  on  the  free  list.  But  for  the 
great  bulk  of  manufactured  articles  the  rates  remained  high. 

Various  new  ideas  were  embodied  in  these  measures — 
provisions  for  reciprocity  treaties  and  a  system  of  maxi 
mum  and  minimum  rates  of  duty,  both  of  which  were 
designed  to  force  tariff  concessions  from  foreign  countries. 
The  Payne-Aldrich  bill  provided  for  a  board  of  tariff  ex- 


228     POLITICAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  PROGRESS 

perts  to  make  a  scientific  examination  of  the  tariff  rates, 
schedule  by  schedule,  as  a  basis  for  more  intelligent  legis 
lation  than  had  heretofore  been  possible.  It  remains  to 
be  seen  from  the  action  of  Congress  on  the  reports  of  this 
board  on  the  wool  and  other  schedules  whether  the  down 
ward  revision  of  the  tariff  is  henceforth  to  proceed  along 
scientific  lines  or  is  to  be  practically  dictated,  as  heretofore, 
by  the  leading  manufacturers  concerned.  However  much 
truth,  finally,  there  may  be  in  the  Democratic  contention 
that  the  protective  tariff  has  produced  swollen  fortunes  at 
one  end  of  the  social  scale  and  wide-spread  poverty  and  dis 
content  at  the  other,  and  has  begotten  wellnigh  criminal 
extravagance  in  the  conduct  of  the  government's  business, 
few  will  be  disposed  to  deny  that,  taken  as  a  whole,  the 
country  has  prospered  marvellously  under  the  tariff  policy 
of  the  Republicans. 

Of  even  greater  importance  than  the  tariff  was  the  con 
test  for  sound  money  which  began  with  Grant's  veto  of 
the  Inflation  bill  and  continued  for  a  full  quarter  of  a  cen 
tury  before  the  gold  standard  was  finally  adopted  as  the 
basis  for  the  government's  system  of  finance.  For  a  decade 
after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  the  popularity  of  the  green 
back  was  great.  The  notion  had  become  widely  prevalent 
toward  the  end  of  this  period,  especially  in  the  middle  West 
and  South,  that  the  needs  of  the  country  for  a  larger  volume 
of  currency  could  be  satisfied  if  the  government  would 
print  more  greenbacks.  What  the  West  and  the  South 
needed  was  not  a  more  generous  distribution  by  the  gov 
ernment  of  paper  currency  but  additional  capital,  and 
capital  could  be  had  only  in  exchange  for  labor  or  commodi 
ties.  But  with  all  their  available  capital  tied  up  in  real 


LEGISLATION   IN   FAVOR   OF   SILVER          229 

estate  and  in  manufacturing  and  farming  enterprises,  and 
with  their  debts  steadily  increasing,  the  men  of  the  West 
and  the  South  looked  to  the  government  for  relief,  and  mis 
takenly  thought  that  relief  could  he  had  through  the  issue 
of  more  "fiat"  money.  Grant's  veto  of  the  Inflation  bill 
and  the  ample  opportunities  for  discussion  which  the  lean 
years  following  the  panic  of  1873  afforded,  did  much  to 
dispel  the  illusions  which  had  become  popularly  associated 
with  the  greenback. 

It  was  in  this  period  of  inactivity  in  business  and  in  this 
manner  that  the  attention  of  the  West  and  of  the  South 
became  diverted  from  greenbacks  to  silver  as  a  promising 
remedy  for  the  inadequacy  of  the  circulating  medium. 
In  the  preceding  half-dozen  years  the  production  of  silver 
in  the  Rocky  Mountain  states  had  been  increasing  enor 
mously.  The  value  of  the  silver  output  of  these  states, 
which  in  1861  was  only  $2,000,000,  reached  $12,000,000  in 
1868,  $28,750,000  in  1872  and  $37,000,000  in  1874.  Four 
years  later,  when  the  production  had  reached  $40,000,000, 
the  demand,  especially  from  the  silver-producing  states, 
that  Congress  provide  some  method  by  which  this  huge 
volume  of  the  white  metal  might  be  absorbed  into  the 
coinage  system  of  the  country  became  incessant  and  insist 
ent.  Many  of  the  arguments  that  prevailed  during  the 
greenback  craze  were  readapted  to  meet  the  silver  situa 
tion  and  were  repeated  with  new  energy,  the  association 
of  abundant  money  and  business  prosperity  having  fixed 
itself  firmly  in  the  minds  of  multitudes  of  men,  not  a  few 
of  whom  were  outspoken  in  their  advocacy  of  even  the  free 
coinage  of  silver. 

So  strongly  and  widely  held  were  these  views  that  in 


23o     POLITICAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL   PROGRESS 

1878  Congress  was  compelled  to  pass  the  Bland-Allison 
bill  restoring  the  silver  dollar  to  the  standard  coinage,  from 
which  it  had  been  dropped  five  years  earlier,  providing  for 
the  coinage  of  from  two  to  four  million  dollars  in  silver 
each  month,  and  making  silver  dollars  legal  tender  to  any 
amount.  In  the  same  year  the  further  retirement  of  green 
backs  was  forbidden;  what  the  people  wanted  was  not  less 
but  more  "  money. "  Under  the  stimulus  of  these  govern 
ment  purchases  the  production  of  silver  increased  rapidly 
until  in  1890  it  reached  $57,000,000.  Efforts  were  making 
meanwhile  to  interest  other  nations  in  silver.  Commis 
sioners  were  sent  abroad  in  the  hope  of  persuading  leading 
foreign  governments  of  the  advantages  of  international 
bimetallism.  European  financiers,  however,  turned  an 
unsympathetic  ear  to  the  arguments  of  the  American 
emissaries;  the  single  gold  standard,  they  said,  satisfied  all 
their  needs. 

The  demands  of  the  advocates  of  silver  kept  pace  with 
the  constantly  increasing  production  of  the  mines,  however, 
and  at  last  the  pressure  became  too  strong  longer  to  be 
resisted.  In  response  to  these  demands  Congress  in  1890 
passed  the  Sherman  Silver  Purchase  bill,  in  accordance  with 
which  the  government  engaged  to  buy,  each  month,  four 
and  a  half  million  ounces  of  silver  at  the  market  rate,  not 
to  exceed  $1.29  an  ounce,  paying  therefor  by  issues  of  legal- 
tender  treasury  notes  redeemable  in  gold  or  silver  at  the 
option  of  the  government.  In  other  words,  the  govern 
ment  pledged  itself  to  buy  from  the  states  of  the  far  West 
practically  the  entire  output  of  their  silver  mines.  The 
arrangement  was  a  profitable  one  for  the  mine-owners,  but 
proved  to  be  costly  for  the  country  at  large. 


CLEVELAND'S   CHARACTERISTICS  231 

Under  these  heavy  monthly  purchases  by  the  government 
the  price  of  silver  naturally  began  to  fall.  In  the  three 
years  that  intervened  between  the  passage  of  the  Silver 
Purchase  bill  and  the  special  session  of  Congress  called  by 
Cleveland  in  August,  1893,  tne  Price  declined  from  $1.09  to 
75  cents  an  ounce.  Meanwhile,  by  the  operation  of  a  law 
well  known  to  students  of  finance,  the  cheaper  metal,  silver, 
had  been  driving  the  dearer  metal,  gold,  out  of  the  country 
in  exchange  for  American  bonds  and  other  securities  which 
European  holders  did  not  care  to  carry  longer  for  fear  lest 
the  American  passion  for  silver  might  precipitate  a  catas 
trophe  involving  them  in  heavy  losses.  The  government's 
gold  reserve  had  been  drained  in  this  operation  to  such  an 
extent  that  the  danger  became  great  that  the  national 
finances  would  be  forced  upon  a  silver  basis,  with  serious 
injury  to  credit  and  to  industries  of  all  classes. 

The  repeal  of  the  Silver  Purchase  act  at  this  special  ses 
sion  of  Congress  came  too  late.  The  mischief  had  already 
been  done,  and  in  the  next  few  years  Cleveland  was  obliged 
to  purchase  more  than  $150,000,000  in  gold  through  the 
sale  of  bonds  to  New  York  bankers  and  to  the  public  in 
order  to  keep  the  government's  gold  reserve  above  the 
danger  mark  and  to  preserve  the  relative  values  of  gold 
and  silver.  The  intelligence,  moral  courage  and  strength 
of  will  which  enabled  Cleveland,  without  help  either  from 
his  own  party  in  Congress,  the  leaders  of  which  he  had 
antagonized,  or  from  the  Republicans,  to  carry  the  national 
finances  through  this  crisis,  may  in  time  be  regarded  by 
history  as  his  highest  title  to  the  gratitude  of  his  country 
men. 

Other  causes  than  the  government's  purchases  of  silver 


23 2      POLITICAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   PROGRESS 

contributed  largely  to  the  panic  of  1893 — agricultural  de 
pression,  the  excessive  mortgaging  of  farms,  reckless  rail 
way  financiering  and  extravagance  in  public  and  private  life. 
The  panic  served  to  bring  freshly  to  light,  however,  the 
defects  of  a  monetary  system  which  for  years  had  favored 
silver  at  the  expense  of  gold.  The  lessons  of  the  panic 
were  therefore  an  educational  influence  of  the  highest  value. 
The  advocates  of  sound  money,  moreover,  had  been  far 
from  idle  during  these  years,  and  the  effects  of  their  teach 
ings  were  revealed  in  the  presidential  campaign  of  1896, 
when  the  business  interests  not  only  of  the  East  but  of  the 
West  united  to  defeat  Bryan,  the  candidate  representing 
free  silver.  The  general  revival  of  business  in  McKinley's 
first  administration  and  the  great  increase  in  the  production 
of  gold  in  the  far  West  and  in  Alaska,  the  advance  being 
steady  from  $36,000,000  in  1893  to  $79,000,000  in  1900, 
were  also  important  influences  affecting  public  opinion  in 
favor  of  sound  money.  In  1900,  therefore,  in  response  to 
a  demand  directly  opposite  in  character  to  that  which  had 
prevailed  ten  years  earlier,  an  act  of  Congress  placed  the 
finances  of  the  nation  on  a  gold  basis.  The  defeat  of 
Bryan  for  a  second  time  in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year 
stamped  the  national  seal  of  approval  upon  this  act,  and 
put  an  end  to  the  agitation  in  favor  of  free  silver. 

The  panic  of  1907,  following  laxity  and  extravagance 
in  insurance  and  trust  company  management,  over-specu 
lation  in  real  estate  projects  and  an  undue  extension  of 
many  branches  of  business,  illustrated  anew  in  its  paralyzing 
effects  the  necessity  for  the  reform  of  the  coinage  and  cur 
rency  system  of  the  country.  What  was  needed  has  been 
admirably  summarized  by  A.  Barton  Hepburn,  a  high 


PURCHASE  OF  ALASKA  233 

authority  in  banking,  in  his  Contest  for  Sound  Money — a 
monetary  system  which  would  give  stability  to  metallic 
money  and  security  and  flexibility  to  paper  currency,  to  the 
end  that  prices  might  remain  steady  and  interest  rates 
continue  reasonably  uniform  and  equitable  throughout  the 
country.  Whether  or  not  a  system  possessing  these  merits 
is  to  be  found  in  the  recommendations  submitted  to  Con 
gress  in  January,  1912,  of  the  National  Monetary  Commis 
sion,  of  which  ex-Senator  Aldrich  was  the  chairman,  remains 
to  be  seen.  The  adoption  of  such  a  system  is  not  expected 
to  prevent  panics  so  much  as  to  deprive  panics  of  some  of 
their  most  disastrous  accompaniments  and  consequences. 

Aside  from  those  which  have  already  been  referred  to 
or  which  will  be  considered  in  a  later  chapter,  the  two  most 
important  events  in  the  foreign  relations  of  the  nation 
since  the  Civil  War  have  been  the  purchase  of  Alaska  in 
1867  and  the  vigorous  assertion  by  President  Cleveland  in 
1895  °f  tne  Monroe  Doctrine  as  a  means  of  compelling 
Great  Britain  to  submit  its  boundary  dispute  with  Ven 
ezuela  to  arbitration.  The  circumstances  under  which 
Secretary  Seward  obtained  Alaska  from  Russia  for  the 
sum  of  $7,200,000  were  all  propitious.  The  people  of  the 
Pacific  states  and  territories  had  for  years  been  anxious  to 
acquire  fishing  rights  along  the  coast  of  Alaska,  and  Russia 
was  very  willing  to  sell  a  possession  from  which  little  or 
no  revenue  was  derived  and  which  was  remote  and  difficult 
to  defend,  especially  as  the  results  of  the  Crimean  War  had 
made  it  necessary  for  the  Russian  government  to  husband 
its  energies  and  to  concentrate  its  resources.  Not  a  few 
men  in  Congress  and  a  considerable  portion  of  the  public 
were  disposed  to  take  a  jocose  view  of  the  expenditure  of 


234     POLITICAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  PROGRESS 

so  large  a  sum  of  money  for  the  purchase  of  a  country 
which  was  supposed  to  be  covered  for  the  greater  part  with 
snow  and  ice  and  which  was  facetiously  termed  Walrussia. 
Time,  however,  proved  that  the  judgment  of  Secretary 
Seward,  who  had  the  imagination  to  foresee  the  strategic 
and  commercial  advantages  likely  to  result  from  the  acqui 
sition  of  the  territory,  was  sound.  For  the  purchase  proved 
to  be  one  of  the  most  fortunate  and  profitable  that  the 
United  States  ever  made.  It  added  an  area  of  590,884 
square  miles  to  the  national  domain — an  area  a  third 
greater  than  that  of  the  Atlantic  states  from  Maine  to 
Florida;  and  the  value  of  the  principal  products  of  the  land 
and  the  waters  of  the  country,  furs,  fish  and  minerals,  from 
1867  down  to  1912,  has  exceeded  the  huge  total  of  $420,- 
000,000.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  negotiations 
with  reference  to  this  purchase  were  greatly  facilitated  by 
the  use  of  the  Atlantic  cable,  the  successful  laying  of  which, 
due  to  the  boundless  faith  and  indomitable  energy  of  Cyrus 
W.  Field,  had  been  completed  in  the  previous  year. 

(The  Monroe  Doctrine,  which  had  lain  dormant  since 
1866,  when,  with  the  veteran  troops  of  Grant  and  Sherman 
I  behind  it,  it  had  only  to  be  referred  to  in  order  to  force  the 
French  army  of  occupation,  sent  thither  by  Napoleon  III, 
out  of  Mexico,  was  revived  in  1895  by  President  Cleveland 
and  his  Secretary  of  State,  Richard  Olney,  and  was  made 
to  apply  to  the  boundary  dispute,  which  had  been  in  exist 
ence  for  half  a  century,  between  Venezuela  and  British 
Gu'ana.  The  position  of  Cleveland  and  Olney  seemed  to 
be  that  as  Great  Britain  had  repeatedly  refused  to  submit 
the  dispute  to  arbitration,  and  was  apparently  determined 
to  impose  its  will  and  its  notion  of  the  proper  boundary  line 


VENEZUELA  AND   THE   MONROE  DOCTRINE     235 

upon  a  weak  and  helpless  nation,  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was 
clearly  applicable  to  the  case.  Cleveland  also  appears  to 
have  thought  that  if  he  adopted  a  firm  tone  and  made  per 
fectly  clear  the  intention  of  the  United  States  to  fight  rather 
than  tamely  to  allow  Venezuela  to  be  despoiled  of  territory 
that  might  rightfully  belong  to  her,  England  would  back 
down.  He  may  have  been  convinced,  moreover,  that  war 
would  be  less  likely  to  result  from  his  message  to  Congress, 
with  its  provision  for  a  commission  of  inquiry,  involving 
consequent  delay,  than  from  the  agitation  of  the  subject  in 
Congress  and  in  the  sensational  newspapers,  with  possibly 
irritating  effects  upon  both  Englishmen  and  Americans, 
while  further  futile  negotiations  were  dragging  along.  He 
certainly  assured  his  intimates  at  the  time  that  the  message 
would  result  not  in  war  but  in  arbitration,  and  this  pre 
diction  turned  out  to  be  correct. 

The  risk,  however,  which  Cleveland  took  in  this  affair 
was  great,  and  the  verdict  of  history  will  probably  be  that 
it  was  rather  through  good  fortune  than  good  judgment 
that  serious  trouble  was  avoided.  For  the  timely  inter 
vention  of  Jameson's  raid  into  the  Transvaal  occurred  at 
this  moment,  and  the  congratulatory  dispatch  of  the  Ger 
man  Emperor  to  President  Kriiger  so  incensed  and  in 
flamed  all  England  that  Venezuela  and  Cleveland's  belli 
cose  message  were  forgotten.  Lord  Salisbury,  who  had 
maintained  from  the  first  that  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was 
not  applicable  to  the  controversy — a  position  since  shared 
by  not  a  few  historians  and  publicists,  American  as  well  as 
foreign — finally  consented  to  arbitration,  and  the  grave 
danger  that  undoubtedly  lay  in  the  situation  was  happily 
averted. 


236     POLITICAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  PROGRESS 

Cleveland's  second  term  of  office  was  noteworthy  not 
only  for  his  courageous  stand  in  favor  of  sound  money  and 
for  his  controversy  with  England  over  Venezuela,  but  for 
the  substantial  assistance  which  he  gave  to  the  cause  of 
civil  service  reform.  The  greatest  advances  which  have 
been  made  under  the  Pendleton  Civil  Service  law,  passed  in 
1883,  in  taking  the  appointment  of  government  officials 
out  of  the  control  of  the  politicians,  are  to  be  credited  to 
President  Cleveland  and  President  Roosevelt.  At  the  end 
of  1911  about  230,000  government  positions  were  in  the 
classified  service.  Nearly  all  of  these  offices,  however,  as 
was  pointed  out  by  Dr.  Charles  W.  Eliot,  the  president  of 
the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League,  in  the  address 
which  was  read  in  Philadelphia,  in  December,  1911,  are 
subordinate  places  with  low  salaries.  On  the  other  hand, 
nearly  all  the  superior  offices,  having  good  or  high  salaries 
worth  assessing  for  political  purposes,  more  than  one  hun 
dred  thousand  in  number,  are  still  filled  by  the  patronage 
method.  "It  is  their  grip,"  Dr.  Eliot  added,  "on  the  vast 
total  of  the  salaries  paid  to  public  officers  appointed  by  the 
patronage  method,  and  on  the  personal  services  of  such 
officers,  which  maintains  the  bosses,  rings  and  machines," 
and  which  prolongs  "the  power  of  the  senators,  congress 
men,  governors,  mayors  and  state,  county  or  city  elected 
representatives  and  officials  who  control  all  the  appoint 
ments  not  made  on  the  merit  system." 

President  Taft  recommended  that  the  entire  executive 
civil  service  of  the  national  government,  excluding  officers 
responsible  for  the  policy  of  administration  and  their  im 
mediate  personal  assistants  or  deputies,  be  placed  on  the 
merit  system  of  appointment.  For  the  reasons,  however, 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  AT  WORK  IN  HIS  LABORATORY  IN  ORANGE, 

NEW  JERSEY. 
From  a  photograph  copyright  by  W.  K.  I.  Dickson. 


238     POLITICAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  PROGRESS 

so  tersely  stated  by  Dr.  Eliot,  the  politicians  in  Congress 
have  not  thus  far  shown  any  disposition  to  resign  their  pat 
ronage  prerogatives.  Further  education  of  public  opinion 
and  further  pressure  upon  Congress  will  be  necessary  before 
this  final  and  decisive  step  in  the  reform  can  be  taken. 

The  inventive  ingenuity  of  the  American  people  has 
kept  pace  in  its  development  since  the  Civil  War  with  the 
progress  of  the  nation  in  other  fields  of  endeavor.  Indeed, 
a  book  might  easily  be  written  about  the  wonderful  dis 
coveries,  especially  in  electricity,  of  the  last  thirty  or  forty 
years — discoveries  the  practical  application  of  which  to 
every-day  uses  has  brought  about  great  changes  in  the 
social  and  industrial  life  of  every  community.  Several  of 
these  inventions,  notably  the  Bell  telephone  and  the  Edison 
incandescent  light,  with  the  application  of  electricity  as 
power  to  street  cars  and  to  other  purposes,  have  proved  to 
be  scarcely  less  serviceable  to  humanity  than  the  discovery, 
half  a  century  earlier,  that  steam-power  could  be  used  to 
propel  railway  trains  and  vessels. 

Alexander  Graham  Bell  received  his  patent  for  his  re 
markable  invention  in  1876.  So  universal  since  then  has 
become  the  use  of  the  telephone  that  in  1911  the  daily 
average  number  of  messages  passing  over  the  nearly  thir 
teen  million  miles  of  Bell  wires  in  the  United  States  was 
more  than  twenty-four  million,  representing  a  total  for 
the  year  of  considerably  more  than  seven  and  a  half  billion 
messages.  The  Edison  electric  light  which  has  displaced 
gas  as  effectually  as  the  automobile  in  its  various  forms 
has  displaced  the  horse,  dates  only  from  1880,  when  it  was 
first  publicly  exhibited.  Electricity  has  become  a  means 
also  of  generating  heat  as  well  as  of  light  and  power,  and 


AMERICAN  INVENTIVE   INGENUITY          239 

fuel  oil,  as  a  source  of  power  for  driving  vessels  and  loco 
motive  as  well  as  stationary  engines,  is  coming  into  more 
and  more  general  use  every  year. 

It  would  be  a  mistake,  moreover,  to  regard  the  Edison 
phonograph  and  the  graphophone  in  their  perfected  forms 
and  the  various  self-playing  pianos,  especially  those  with 
electrical  attachments,  merely  as  toys  of  marvellous  inge 
nuity.  For  these  inventions  have  undoubtedly  done  more 
in  portions  of  the  country  remote  from  the  larger  cities  to 
develop  among  the  people  a  taste  for  good  music  than 
could  have  been  accomplished  in  generations  without  their 
aid.  Finally,  those  two  wonderful  playthings  of  the  air, 
aeroplanes,  in  the  successful  construction  and  manipula 
tion  of  which  Wilbur  Wright  and  his  brother,  of  Dayton, 
Ohio,  were  the  pioneers,  and  dirigible  balloons,  have  yet 
to  prove  their  practical  value.  He  would  be  rash  indeed, 
however,  who,  in  the  light  of  the  marvellous  achievements 
of  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  should  venture  to  predict 
that  they  are  to  remain  toys  of  extraordinary  ingenuity  or 
that  man's  mastery  of  the  land  and  the  sea  is  not  at  some 
time  in  the  future  to  extend  to  the  air  in  such  a  way  as  to 
be  of  practical  service  to  humanity. 


XIX 
BUSINESS  EXPANSION  AND  IMPERIALISM 

No  economic  question  of  wider  public  interest  ever  arose 
in  the  United  States  than  that  precipitated  in  1911  by  the 
disintegration,  under  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
of  the  Standard  Oil  and  the  American  Tobacco  companies. 
In  its  simplest  form  this  question  concerned  itself  with  the 
relative  merits  of  the  opposing  principles  of  industrial  com 
bination  on  the  one  hand  and  of  industrial  competition  and 
individualism  on  the  other.  In  order  to  make  clear  the 
nature  of  this  controversy  it  will  be  necessary  to  recall 
briefly  the  causes  which  led  to  the  passage  by  Congress,  first 
of  the  Interstate  Commerce  bill,  in  1887,  and,  more  espe 
cially,  of  the  Sherman  Anti-trust  bill,  so-called,  in  1890. 

The  Interstate  Commerce  law  was  enacted,  first,  for  the 
purpose  of  checking  the  growing  tendency  on  the  part  of 
railway  corporations  to  form  agreements  regarding  freight 
rates  and  to  make  pooling  arrangements  regarding  earnings, 
thus  eliminating  competition  with  each  other;  and,  secondly, 
in  order  to  prevent  discriminations  in  freight  rates  in  favor 
of  this  or  that  individual  or  corporation,  this  or  that  com 
munity,  or  this  or  that  commodity.  The  law  forbade  these 
practices,  made  the  publicity  of  rates  compulsory,  and 
created  a  commission  to  investigate  complaints  and  to 
impose  fines  for  violations  of  the  law.  A  federal  law  was 
necessary  in  order  to  accomplish  this  end  because  the 

240 


RAILWAY   CORPORATIONS   AND   TRUSTS      241 

Supreme  Court  had  just  decided  that  the  power  of  a  state 
to  regulate  railway  matters  was  restricted  to  the  traffic 
within  its  own  borders;  and  a  federal  law  was  fortunately 
made  possible  by  the  clause  in  the  Constitution  giving  Con 
gress  authority  "to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations 
and  among  the  states. "  Such  was  the  rapidity  with  which 
new  railways  had  been  and  were  later  constructed  that  the 
total  mileage  for  the  United  States  reached  not  far  from 
two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  in  1912. 

In  the  middle  'eighties  the  railway  corporations,  with 
their  agreements,  pools,  discriminations  and  rebates,  were 
the  chief  objects  of  complaints  on  the  part  of  shippers.  As 
the  years  passed,  however,  the  attention  of  the  public  and 
of  Congress  was  attracted  more  and  more  to  the  combina 
tions  or  trusts,  as  they  came  to  be  called,  in  various  indus 
tries,  particularly  in  those  dealing  in  iron,  steel,  woollen 
goods  and  oil  products,  and  to  the  effects  upon  prices  of 
these  trusts.  It  was  soon  realized  that  an  important  eco 
nomic  change  was  foreshadowed  by  this  tendency  toward 
concentration.  Individual  initiative  and  enterprise  and 
domestic  freedom  in  competition,  which  had  supplied  the 
motive  power  for  American  industrial  progress  for  a  cen 
tury,  seemed  to  be  threatened  by  the  new  business  prin 
ciple  of  combination  and  community  of  interests,  the 
effects,  if  not  the  purposes,  of  which  might  be  restraint  of 
trade,  monopoly  and  high  prices. 

Such  were  the  conditions  when,  in  1890,  the  Sherman 
Anti-trust  bill  was  passed.  The  purpose  of  the  measure, 
in  a  word,  was  to  make  illegal  any  combination  of  corpora 
tions  or  individual  manufacturers,  ordinarily  competitive, 
in  restraint  of  trade  and  thus  resulting  in  or  tending 


242     BUSINESS  EXPANSION  AND  IMPERIALISM 

toward  monopoly.  Prices  were  so  high  in  1890  as  to  be 
subjects  for  newspaper  comment;  and  Senator  Sherman,  in 
introducing  the  Anti-trust  bill,  said,  referring  to  the  indus 
trial  combinations  against  which  it  was  aimed,  "  Congress 
alone  can  deal  with  them,  and  if  we  are  unwilling  or  unable, 
there  will  soon  be  a  trust  for  every  production  and  a  master 
to  fix  the  price  of  every  necessary  of  life."  The  bill  as  it 
was  finally  passed  was  in  the  main  the  work  of  Senator 
Edmunds  and  of  other  members  of  the  Judiciary  Committee, 
to  which  on  its  introduction  it  was  referred.  The  expecta 
tion  of  the  framers  of  the  measure  was  that  it  would  have 
the  effect  of  re-establishing  on  a  firm  and  lasting  basis  the 
economic  principle  of  free  competition  and  individual  enter 
prise  in  American  industrial  affairs. 

No  such  immediate  result,  however,  followed.  Save  for 
the  suits  brought  under  President  Harrison's  administra 
tion  against  the  Whiskey  trust  and  the  Sugar  trust,  both 
of  which  were  unsuccessful  because  of  inefficient  manage 
ment,  the  law  became  and  remained  a  dead  letter,  ignored 
or  forgotten  apparently  by  everybody  for  more  than  a 
decade.  The  reasons  for  this  neglect  are  not  far  to  seek. 
In  those  days,  the  railroads,  as  has  already  been  explained, 
were  the  chief  offenders,  and  it  was  to  the  railroad  com 
panies  that  the  government  gave  the  most  attention. 
Moreover,  industrial  trusts  were  not  then  numerous,  and, 
with  few  exceptions,  were  not  formidable.  Indeed,  several 
.of  them,  notably  the  Cordage  trust,  became  involved  in 
financial  difficulties  in  consequence  of  the  panic  of  1893  an<^ 
were  virtually  forced  out  of  business.  They  were  regarded 
with  more  or  less  suspicion  by  both  bankers  and  public, 
and  most  of  them  seemed  likely  to  hang  themselves  without 


WORLD-WIDE   VIEWS   OF   TRADE  243 

help  from  the  government,  if  the  traditional  length  of  cor 
dage  were  vouchsafed  them. 

The  conditions,  in  truth,  calling  for  the  enforcement  of 
the  Anti-trust  law  did  not  exist  until  after  the  war  with 
Spain.  That  war  and  its  results,  however,  set  in  motion, 
in  1898,  a  powerful  current  of  new  ideas,  which  seemed  to 
have  an  immediate  and  an  extraordinary  effect  upon  the 
imaginations  and  upon  the  temperaments,  usually  more  or 
less  conservative  if  not  phlegmatic,  of  business  men  through 
out  the  country,  resulting  in  a  condition  of  affairs  of  deep 
interest  to  the  student  of  what  may  perhaps  be  called 
mercantile  psychology.  The  force  of  circumstances  had  at 
last  made  the  American  nation  a  world  power,  with  out 
lying  dependencies  and  with  corresponding  obligations  and 
responsibilities.  Isolation,  detachment  from  the  affairs 
of  the  outside  world,  which  Washington  in  his  Farewell 
Address  had  advised,  was  no  longer  possible  either  in  poli 
tics  or  in  business.  The  barriers  were  down,  and  oppor 
tunity  beckoned  to  men  of  self-confidence,  daring  and  large 
ideas. 

It  was  under  the  influence  of  these  ambitious  and  far- 
reaching  dreams  that  the  great  movement  began  in  1899 
to  bring  whole  industries  under  the  control  of  boards  of 
directors  of  single  corporations.  The  technical  conditions 
at  the  moment  were  all  of  a  character,  moreover,  to  en 
courage  those  eager  to  organize  and  finance  big  projects. 
Money  was  plentiful;  general  business  was  good;  sentiment 
was  optimistic ;  the  tariff  was  settled  by  the  Dingley  law  for 
a  long  time,  it  was  thought,  to  come;  no  further  danger 
was  apprehended  from  Bryan  and  free  silver;  the  gold 
standard  was  about  to  be  adopted  as  a  permanent  basis  for 


244     BUSINESS  EXPANSION  AND  IMPERIALISM 

the  nation's  finances;  prosperity  had  come  even  to  the 
farmers  of  the  middle  West;  the  crops  were  more  varied  in 
character  and  had  increased  greatly  in  value,  wheat,  for 
example,  from  $213,000,000  in  1893  to  $392,000,000  in 
1898;  finally,  as  if  in  anticipation  of  this  very  situation,  the 
New  Jersey  Holding  Company  law,  which  had  recently  been 
passed,  offered,  by  its  comprehensiveness  and  elasticity,  a 
convenient  means  by  which  whole  industries  could  be  com 
bined  under  a  compact  central  management,  with  promises 
of  large  profits  to  the  promoters  of  these  enterprises. 

Such  was  the  feverish  energy  with  which,  under  these 
favorable  conditions,  new  combinations  were  organized, 
that  in  the  single  year  of  1899  the  capitalization  of  the 
various  industrial  corporations  formed  amounted,  accord 
ing  to  careful  estimates,  to  the  huge  total  of  three  and  a 
half  billion  dollars,  a  not  inconsiderable  part  of  which 
represented  such  intangible  assets  as  patents,  good-will 
and  even  expectations.  Railway  systems,  moreover,  as 
well  as  manufacturing  industries,  were  subjected,  in  the 
years  immediately  following,  to  the  same  process  of  com 
bination  under  the  management  of  individuals  or  small 
groups  of  men.  Mr.  Harriman  brought  the  Union,  Cen 
tral  and  Southern  Pacific  systems,  one-third  of  the  total 
railway  mileage  of  the  United  States,  under  his  personal 
authority,  and  the  Northern  Securities  Company,  formed 
by  Mr.  Hill,  exercised  virtual  ownership  and  control  over 
the  three  systems  of  the  Northern  Pacific,  Great  Northern 
and  Chicago,  Burlington  and  Quincy.  Similar  influences 
were  at  work,  meanwhile,  among  the  large  financial  insti 
tutions  of  the  country,  the  national  banks,  trust  companies, 
insurance  companies  and  great  banking  houses,  the  appar- 


DANGER  OF   INDUSTRIAL  COMBINATIONS     245 

ent  purpose  of  which  was  gradually  to  concentrate,  in  the 
hands  of  a  comparatively  small  group  of  men,  the  control, 
for  good  or  evil,  of  enormous  financial  resources.  The 
extreme  lengths  to  which  even  men  of  character  and  repute 
and  of  influence  in  the  world  of  finance  seemed  ready  to 
go  in  those  days,  if  unchecked  by  publicity  and  the  result 
ing  public  opinion,  were  clearly  indicated  by  the  revelations 
of  the  legislative  inquiry,  conducted  by  Mr.  Hughes,  into 
the  management  of  the  great  insurance  companies  of  New 
York  City. 

The  gravest  danger,  however,  lay  in  the  industrial  com 
binations,  which  multiplied  so  rapidly  that  by  the  end  of 
1903  practically  every  important  industry  in  the  country 
had  been  subjected  to  the  process  of  consolidation  into  one 
or  more  big  units.  The  danger  was  that  these  huge  indus 
trial  organizations  representing  vast  amounts  of  capital 
might  come  to  regard  themselves  as  superior  to  the  law 
and  as  free  to  exercise  their  will,  with  reference  to  smaller 
competitors  or  to  prices,  without  let  or  hindrance  from 
the  government  or  from  any  other  source.  The  apparent 
aims  and  the  business  methods,  moreover,  of  not  a  few  of 
these  combinations  indicated  either  ignorance  of  the  scope 
and  purpose  of  the  Anti-trust  lawT  or  a  belief  that  the  law 
was  to  be  allowed  to  lie  in  abeyance.  The  conjecture  was 
even  hazarded  that  these  corporations  supposed  themselves 
to  be  too  rich  and  too  powerful  ever  to  be  successfully  at 
tacked  by  the  government  for  a  violation  of  its  provisions. 

The  duty  of  combating  and  of  effectively  checking  this 
tendency  in  the  economic  development  of  the  nation  fell 
to  the  lot  of  President  Roosevelt,  who  succeeded  President 
McKinley  when  the  latter  was  assassinated  at  Buffalo  in 


246     BUSINESS  EXPANSION  AND  IMPERIALISM 

1901,  the  conditions  then  prevailing  being  exactly  those 
which  the  Sherman  Anti-trust  law  was  designed  to  cor 
rect.  In  his  very  first  message  President  Roosevelt  indi 
cated  the  lines  along  which  he  thought  the  government 
should  proceed  with  reference  to  the  trusts,  holding  that 
''industrial  combination  and  concentration  should  be,  not 
prohibited,  but  supervised  and  within  reasonable  limits 
controlled, "  the  first  prerequisite  to  which  was  full  publicity 
as  to  the  affairs  of  corporations  doing  an  interstate  business 
as  a  basis  for  proper  government  regulation.  The  disso 
lution,  in  1904,  of  the  Northern  Securities  Company  as  a 
combination  in  restraint  of  trade,  and  so  monopolistic,  was 
the  result  of  the  first  aggressive  step  in  the  crusade  which 
he  carried  on,  with  determination  and  fearlessness,  to  com 
pel  rich  malefactors  to  bring  their  business  affairs  into  ac 
cord  with  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  An ti- trust  law; 
and  the  disintegration  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  and 
of  the  American  Tobacco  Company  under  similar  decisions 
in  1911  was  the  final  fruit  of  further  action  which  he  took 
to  the  same  end.  President  Roosevelt  held  resolutely  at 
the  same  time  to  the  position  that  modern  industrial  con 
ditions  were  such  that  big  combinations  of  capital  were  as 
I  (inevitable  as  corresponding  combinations  of  labor,  and  that 
'lit  was  idle  to  attempt  or  to  desire  to  put  an  end  to  either. 
It  was  not  the  size  but  the  purposes  and  business  methods 
of  the  corporation  which  might  make  it  a  violator  of  the 
Anti-trust  law.  The  remedy  was  to  be  found  in  govern 
ment  supervision  and  control,  as  in  the  case  of  the  railways 
and  national  banks.  In  1906,  in  line  with  these  recom 
mendations,  the  scope  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  law  was 
enlarged  by  further  legislation  so  that  those  other  "com- 


248     BUSINESS  EXPANSION  AND  IMPERIALISM 

mon  carriers,"  express  companies,  sleeping-car  companies 
and  oil-pipe  lines,  were  also  brought  under  the  supervision 
and  control  of  the  commission. 

Many  suits  were  begun  by  the  government  in  the  admin 
istrations  of  President  Roosevelt  and  President  Taft  for 
violations  of  the  Anti-trust  law,  and  for  a  time,  following 
the  panic  of  1907,  the  former  was  denounced  on  all  sides 
for  "interfering  with  business."  By  the  end  of  1911,  how 
ever,  it  became  evident  that  a  decided  change  of  opinion, 
as  regards  the  Sherman  law  in  its  relation  to  trusts,  had 
taken  place  among  the  business  men  directly  or  indirectly 
affected  by  the  measure,  as  well  as  among  the  people  at 
large.  Although  new  corporations  with  a  capitalization 
of  not  far  from  two  billion  dollars  were  formed  in  1911, 
the  absence  of  any  fresh  projects  for  industrial  consolida 
tions,  the  public  announcement  of  the  abandonment  of 
various  plans  for  uniting  similar  industries,  and  the  results, 
satisfactory  on  the  whole,  attending  the  disintegration  of 
the  Standard  Oil  and  American  Tobacco  holding  compa 
nies  were  unmistakable  signs  of  this  change  of  sentiment. 
Whether,  finally,  the  consumer  is  or  is  not  to  be  benefited 
through  lower  prices  by  the  disintegration  of  these  big  in 
dustrial  combinations  remains  to  be  seen.  Business  men 
are  pretty  well  agreed  that  destructive  competition  such 
as  existed  twenty-five  years  ago  cannot  be  restored  under 
present-day  conditions,  and  that  to  attempt  to  restore  it 
would  be  as  undesirable  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
consumer  as  from  that  of  the  manufacturer. 

The  war  between  the  United  States  and  Spain,  in  1898, 
which  seemed  to  open  the  way  for  these  epoch-making 
economic  changes,  was  brought  about  by  a  variety  of 


CAUSES   OF   THE   WAR   WITH   SPAIN  249 

causes.  The  patience  "of  the  American  people  had  been 
severely  tried  for  many  years  by  the  inability  of  Spain  to 
suppress  the  constantly  recurring  insurrections  in  Cuba. 
Their  sense  of  justice,  moreover,  had  been  outraged  by  the 
cruel,  not  to  say  inhuman,  methods  to  which  the  Spanish 
military  authorities  had  resorted  ^fi  order  to  recover  and 
maintain  their  control  of  the  island.  ,/Et  was  natural  also 
that  the  sympathy  of  Americans  shoulcTjDe  with  the  Cuban 
revolutionists  who  were  trying  to  throw^ff  the  yoke  of 
Spanish  tyranny.  Contemporary  evidence  ftaot,  wanting, 
however,  to  show  that  further  diplomacy  andlTlittle  more 
patience  would  have  been  sufficient  to  induce  ftn^iin  to 
yield  to  all  of  the  essential  demands  which  theTfeited 
States  government  could  reasonably  have  made,  %4^ 
not  been  for  the  effect  upon  public  opinion,  first,  ofjhe 
blowing  up,  at  Havana,  of  the  battle-ship  Maine,  in  Fern 
ruary,  with  the  consequent  loss  of  two  hundred  and  sixty 
lives,  and,  secondly,  of  the  report  of  the  naval  board  of 
inquiry  to  the  effect  that  the  originating  cause  of  the  dis 
aster  was  an  external  mine.  Since  the  wreck  of  the  Maine 
was  raised  another  board  has  reached  a  similar  conclusion 
from  somewhat  different  premises,  and  yet  it  seems  as  if 
the  truth  as  to  the  ultimate  cause  of  this  catastrophe  might 
always  remain  a  subject  of  dispute  among  experts. 

President  McKinley  was  not  the  type  of  man  to  throw 
cold  water,  in  an  emergency  of  this  sort,  upon  the  smoul 
dering  anger  of  his  countrymen.  He  was  a  follower,  not  a 
leader,  of  public  opinion,  and  it  was  easy  for  him  to  per 
suade  himself  that  the  clamor  for  war  with  which  the 
sensation-loving  newspapers  soon  rilled  the  air  was  the 
voice  of  the  people  and  must  be  obeyed.  The  progress  of 


250     BUSINESS  EXPANSION  AND  IMPERIALISM 

the  war  revealed  the  hopeless  inferiority  of  the  Spaniards 
to  the  Americans  in  sea  power,  the  destruction  of  the 
Spanish  fleet  at  Manila  by  Admiral  Dewey  and  of  the 
Spanish  cruisers  at  Santiago  by  Admiral  Sampson's  vessels 
leaving  the  Spanish  government  no  alternative  but  to  make 
peace.  Throughout  the  war  the  sympathies  of  the  Latin 
races  of  Europe  were,  not  unnaturally,  with  Spain.  From 
first  to  last,  however,  the  United  States  enjoyed  the  novel 
sensation  of  having  the  moral  support  of  England.  For 
getting  the  Venezuela  affair,  Englishmen,  for  the  first  time 
in  history,  seemed  to  take  a  certain  sort  of  pride  in  the 
achievements,  naval  and  military,  of  their  American  cous 
ins. 

Two  important  military  lessons  were  impressed  upon 
the  nation  by  the  war.  One  was  that  typhoid  fever  was 
a  much  more  deadly  enemy  to  the  American  troops  in  the 
field  than  the  Spanish  regiments  were.  The  other,  growing 
out  of  the  remarkable  voyage  of  the  battle-ship  Oregon 
around  South  America,  was  the  necessity  of  a  canal  across 
the  Isthmus  of  Panama  which  would  bring  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  and  the  Pacific  coast  within  easier  and  quicker 
communication.  Recent  advances  in  the  science  of  pre 
ventive  medicine  resulting  in  the  discovery  of  an  anti 
typhoid  serum  are  expected  to  go  far  toward  solving  one 
of  these  problems,  while,  as  will  appear  later,  the  Panama 
Canal  will  solve  the  other. 

Influential  opposition  to  the  imperialistic  policy  embodied 
in  the  acquisition  by  the  United  States  of  distant  depend 
encies  inhabited  by  alien  races,  under  the  terms  of  the 
treaty  of  Paris,  developed  immediately,  especially  in  the 
East,  so  contrary  was  this  result  of  the  war  to  the  theory 


252     BUSINESS  EXPANSION  AND  IMPERIALISM 

of  American  destiny  which  had  prevailed  for  more  than  a 
century.  This  opposition,  moreover,  increased  in  volume 
and  in  emphasis  when  American  troops  were  used  to  sup 
press  the  insurrection  in  Luzon  of  Aguinaldo  and  his  Fil 
ipino  followers.  If  the  problems  presented  by  Porto  Rico 
were  comparatively  simple,  those  growing  out  of  the  owner 
ship  and  military  control  of  the  Philippine  archipelago  on 
the  other  side  of  the  world,  with  its  sixteen  hundred  islands, 
its  area  of  land  more  than  equal  to  that  of  New  England, 
New  York  and  New  Jersey  combined,  and  its  population, 
savage,  half-savage  and  civilized,  of  more  than  seven  mill 
ions,  were  regarded  by  many  as  anything  but  simple,  and 
seemed  likely  to  bring  upon  the  United  States  heavy  re 
sponsibilities  and  to  foreshadow  serious  complications  with 
foreign  powers  for  which  there  would  be  no  compensating 
advantages. 

On  the  other  hand,  while  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the 
transfer  of  the  Philippines,  as  Admiral  Mahan  has  pointed 
out,  "not  only  was  not  an  object  of  the  war,  but  was  ac 
cepted  with  reluctance,  under  an  unwilling  sense  of  duty, 
as  one  of  its  unfortunate  results,"  there  existed  throughout 
the  country  a  feeling  of  pride,  not  unmixed  with  exhilara 
tion,  that  the  national  boundaries  had  been  thus  broadened, 
and  that  henceforth  the  United  States  would  of  necessity 
take  a  place  among  the  nations  of  the  world  and  bear  a 
share  of  the  wider  and  larger  responsibilities  involved  in 
its  new  position.  China,  in  particular,  as  a  field  for  com 
mercial  enterprise  in  which  the  United  States  would  now 
not  be  without  influence,  gave  to  the  possession  of  the 
Philippines  a  new  significance  which  was  emphasized  when 
American  troops  were  dispatched  thither,  first  on  the 


GENESIS   OF  THE   PANAMA   CANAL  253 

occasion  of  the  Boxer  uprising  in  1900,  and  again  in  1912, 
when  the  revolution  against  the  Manchu  dynasty  was  in 
progress.  Both  of  these  expeditions  were  coincident  with 
the  enunciation  of  the  policy  of  the  United  States,  first  by 
Secretary  Hay  in  the  McKinley  administration  and  later 
by  Secretary  Knox  in  the  Taft  administration,  in  favor 
of  the  territorial  integrity  of  China  and  the  maintenance  in 
China  of  the  "open  door"  to  the  commerce  of  the  world. 

An  earlier  step  in  this  imperialistic  policy  had  already 
been  taken  when  in  August,  1898,  only  a  few  weeks  after 
the  naval  battle  of  Santiago,  the  Hawaiian  Islands  had  been 
formally  annexed  to  the  United  States  by  an  act  of  Con 
gress.  This  result  had  been  preceded  by  a  revolution  in 
the  islands  through  which  the  native  monarchy  had  been 
overthrown  and  a  republic  established,  the  foreign  element, 
in  which  Americans  predominated,  and  the  educated  na 
tives  joining  forces  to  this  end. 

The  ownership  of  these  islands,  to  which  a  territorial 
form  of  government  was  given  by  Congress  in  1900,  and 
of  the  Philippines  was  a  constant  reminder  of  the  strategic 
and  commercial  necessity  for  a  canal  across  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama,  the  need  of  which  had  been  so  severely  felt  when 
the  Oregon  made  its  long  journey  to  join  the  American  fleet 
at  Santiago,  and  President  Roosevelt  took  up  this  well- 
nigh  herculean  labor  with  characteristic  energy  and  self- 
confidence.  The  selection  of  the  Panama  in  preference  to 
the  Nicaragua  route  was  due  chiefly  to  the  discovery  that 
the  bankrupt  French  company  founded  by  DeLesseps 
would  sell  its  rights,  its  constructed  work  and  its  property, 
portable  and  otherwise,  for  what  was  regarded  by  the  board 
of  American  engineers  as  a  fair  price,  forty  million  dollars. 


254     BUSINESS  EXPANSION  AND  IMPERIALISM 

Other  advantages  were:  better  harbors  at  either  end  of 
the  canal,  a  shorter  route  for  vessels,  less  liability  to  earth 
quakes  and  lower  cost  of  operation.  Excavating  was  begun 
in  1907,  and  so  rapid  has  been  the  progress  of  the  work 
under  the  engineer-in-chief ,  Colonel  Goethals,  that  the  canal 
promises  to  be  completed  some  time  before  the  formal  open 
ing  in  1915.  Its  cost,  including  the  fortifications  necessary 
for  its  defense,  will  exceed  four  hundred  million  dollars. 
Scarcely  second  in  importance  to  this  work  as  a  feat  of 
engineering  under  wellnigh  ideal  administrative  conditions, 
has  been  the  scientific  application  of  modern  sanitary  meas 
ures  to  tropical  conditions  of  notorious  unhealthfulness, 
with  results  little  short  of  marvellous  as  regards  the  free 
dom  from  sickness  and  the  general  well-being  of  the  hosts 
of  laborers  and  officials  engaged  in  the  construction  of  the 
canal.  What  effects  the  canal  will  have  upon  the  com 
merce  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  world  at  large,  only 
time  can  tell. 

True  to  its  pledge  to  give  independence  to  Cuba,  the 
United  States,  in  May,  1902,  withdrew  its  troops  from  the 
island  after  they,  in  conjunction  with  the  civil  authorities, 
had  restored  order  and  had  made  the  principal  cities  and 
towns  safe  as  regards  sanitary  conditions — an  illustration 
of  good  faith  thought  to  be  unique  in  the  history  of  the 
dealings  of  powerful  with  weak  nations  in  an  age  of  terri 
torial  aggrandizement  for  commercial  exploitation  and  for 
political  prestige.  Four  years  later  an  insurrection  left 
the  island  without  a  government,  and  the  United  States 
was  obliged,  under  the  treaty  provisions  for  intervention, 
to  send  troops  to  Cuba  to  restore  order,  to  establish  a  pro 
visional  government  and  to  organize  and  set  in  motion  the 


256     BUSINESS  EXPANSION  AND  IMPERIALISM 

machinery  through  which  the  Cubans  themselves  might 
form  a  new  government  that  would  be  permanent.  This 
done  the  American  troops  were  again  withdrawn.  It  was 
made  clear,  however,  by  President  Roosevelt  that  if  insur 
rection  became  a  habit  with  the  Cubans  the  island  would 
lose  its  independence.  Twice  President  Taft  felt  obliged 
to  send  notes  of  warning  to  the  Cuban  government,  once, 
in  the  summer  of  1911,  calling  attention  to  the  danger  of 
extravagance  in  the  management  of  the  finances  of  the 
republic,  and  again,  early  in  1912,  with  reference  to  the 
activity  of  political  agitators  among  the  veterans  of  the 
war  against  Spain.  Thus  the  fate  of  the  new  republic  is 
still  in  the  balance. 

Roosevelt  the  President  proved  himself  to  be  as  efficient 
as  a  peacemaker  as  Roosevelt  the  soldier  was  energetic  and 
aggressive  in  the  war  with  Spain.  For  it  was  through  his 
good  offices  that  Russia  and  Japan  were  induced,  in  1905, 
to  make  peace  at  Portsmouth,  an  instance  of  the  increasing 
influence  which  the  nation  was  acquiring  in  the  affairs  of 
the  Far  East;  and  three  years  earlier  he  had  persuaded  the 
railway  operators  and  mine  workers  in  Pennsylvania  to 
settle  their  differences  regarding  wages  and  hours  of  labor 
by  arbitration,  thus  bringing  to  an  end  the  most  serious 
strike  that  had  ever  occurred  in  the  anthracite  coal  region. 
His  restless  energy,  moreover,  expended  itself  along  many 
economic  lines  other  than  those  already  referred  to,  the 
main  purpose  of  all  of  these  efforts  being  to  prevent  the 
natural  resources  of  the  lands  and  waters  of  the  country 
from  falling  into  the  hands  of  unscrupulous  individuals  and 
of  greedy  corporations,  and  to  reclaim  for  the  agricultural 
use  of  actual  settlers  the  arid  lands  of  the  Far  West  by  elab- 


ROOSEVELT'S   TASK   IN  THIS   PERIOD         257 

orate  irrigation  projects,  the  expense  of  which  was  met  from 
the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  public  lands.  So  varied  and  com 
plex  indeed  were  the  problems  which  the  economic  and 
social  changes  of  this  period  brought  to  the  fore  that  it 
became  necessary  in  1903  to  establish  a  new  department 
of  the  government  dealing  with  commerce  and  labor,  to 
the  secretary  of  which  was  given  a  seat  in  the  cabinet. 

The  commanding  figure  in  this  period  of  economic  and 
social  turmoil  was  that  of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  whose  ser 
vices  to  the  nation  promise  to  place  him,  in  the  perspective 
of  time,  high  among  the  Presidents  whose  names  are  most 
honored  by  their  countrymen.  The  emergency  was  one 
to  call  for  a  strong  man,  with  sufficiently  keen  intelligence 
and  a  sufficiently  high  moral  sense  to  understand  the  real 
issues  which  the  trusts  had  raised  and  the  dangers  involved 
therein,  and  with  sufficient  courage,  determination  and 
strength  of  will  to  apply  relentlessly  the  remedies  neces 
sary  to  bring  the  nation,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  back  to 
sanity,  moderation  and  fair  dealing  in  business  and  public 
affairs  and  to  a  recognition  and  acceptance  of  the  principle 
that  in  a  democracy  special  privileges,  outside  the  letter  as 
well  as  the  spirit  of  the  law,  are  not  for  the  rich  and  power 
ful.  That  President  Roosevelt  was  such  a  man  and  that 
he  accomplished  this  colossal  task  in  the  face  of  hostility 
and  criticism  which  would  have  overwhelmed  a  man  of  less 
stern  fibre,  seems  likely  to  be  the  verdict  of  history. 


XX 

LITERATURE,  FINE  ARTS  AND  EDUCATION 

THE  inference  might  be  drawn  from  the  foregoing  chap 
ters  that  since  the  Civil  War  material  interests  had  absorbed 
the  entire  energies  of  the  American  people.  Such  an  in 
ference,  however,  would  be  incorrect.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  purely  intellectual  and  aesthetic  pursuits  suffered  by 
reason  of  the  superior  attractiveness  of  the  rich  prizes  which 
business  and  professional  careers  offered  to  the  ambitious 
youth  of  the  nation,  in  a  period  when  the  vast  natural 
resources  of  the  country  were  inviting  development  and 
when  the  material  demands  of  a  rapidly  increasing  popu 
lation  were  creating  numberless  opportunities  for  the  ac 
quirement  of  wealth.  Yet  these  pursuits  were  not  wholly 
neglected.  In  the  last  forty  years  America  has  produced 
a  few  books,  a  number  of  paintings,  some  pieces  of  sculpture 
and  many  buildings  which,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  think, 
may  give  pleasure,  intellectual  or  aesthetic  or  both,  to 
generations  to  come. 

Of  the  books  that  have  appeared  in  this  period  Mark 
Twain's  Life  on  the  Mississippi  River  and  his  Tom  Sawyer 
and  Huckleberry  Finn  have  taken  a  high  rank  because  of 
the  vividness,  truth,  human  sympathy  and  humor  with 
which  they  portray  life  and  character  in  the  Mississippi 
Valley  in  the  decades  preceding  the  Civil  War.  The  fame 
of  Walt  Whitman  is  greater  abroad,  especially  in  France, 
than  it  is  among  his  own  countrymen,  who  have  thus  far 

258 


HISTORY,   SCHOLARSHIP   AND   CRITICISM     259 

failed  to  recognize  in  his  verse  the  voice  of  a  prophet  of 
American  democracy  or  the  evidence  of  creative  genius. 
He  has  an  original  force,  however,  that  is  still  to  be  reck 
oned  with,  and  the  final  place,  if  any,  which  he  is  to  occupy 
in  American  literature  may  remain  in  doubt  a  long  time. 

The  realization  of  the  fact  that  the  Civil  War  was  the 
last  act  in  the  tragedy  of  slavery  and  ended  an  epoch  of 
momentous  dramatic  interest  in  the  life  of  the  nation 
seemed  to  have  the  effect  of  turning  the  minds  of  many 
men  to  historical  research.  Mr.  Rhodes,  in  his  history  of 
the  United  States  from  the  compromise  of  1850,  and  Henry 
Adams,  in  his  brilliant  narrative  of  the  administrations  of 
Jefferson  and  Madison,  made  enviable  names  for  themselves, 
while  the  works  of  McMaster,  H.  H.  Bancroft  and  Schouler 
contain  much  that  will  be  of  service  to  the  historian  of  the 
future.  Few  if  any  writers  on  American  history  from  the 
earliest  times  to  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  have 
reached  so  wide  a  popular  audience  as  has  John  Fiske, 
whose  philosophical  cast  of  mind  and  whose  clearness  and 
simplicity  of  style  in  the  exposition  of  abstruse  subjects 
had  already  been  revealed  in  his  earlier  Outlines  of  Cosmic 
Philosophy  and  in  other  books  on  different  aspects  of  the 
theory  of  evolution,  to  which  he  made  substantial  original 
contributions.  Professor  Sloane,  meanwhile,  found  conge 
nial  themes  for  noteworthy  historical  works  in  the  Revo 
lutionary  and  Napoleonic  periods  in  France. 

Scholarship  and  criticism  too  have  been  enriched  by  the 
painstaking  labors  of  a  few  men — Professor  Child,  through 
his  edition  of  the  English  and  Scottish  ballads;  Professor 
Lounsbury,  through  his  illuminating  works  on  Chaucer  and 
about  Shakespeare;  Dr.  Furness,  through  his  Variorum 


260     LITERATURE,  FINE  ARTS  AND  EDUCATION 

Shakespeare;  Professor  James,  through  his  contributions 
to  psychology,  remarkable  at  once  for  their  imaginative 
originality  and  their  extreme  felicity  of  phrase.  Admiral 
Mahan,  by  his  exposition  of  the  important  part  which  sea 
power  has  played  in  the  relations  of  nations,  has  made 
an  important  contribution  to  the  philosophy  of  history, 
winning  thereby  for  himself  an  international  reputation. 
President  Lowell's  work  on  The  Government  of  England  has 
taken  rank  with  Bryce's  American  Commonwealth  for  the 
thoroughness  and  soundness  of  its  scholarship.  Charac 
terized  by  extraordinary  subtlety  of  understanding  and  by 
a  catholic  and  yet  a  discriminating  taste,  the  four  books 
which  Mr.  Brownell  has  published,  French  Traits,  French 
Art,  Victorian  Prose  Masters  and  American  Prose  Masters, 
have  given  him  a  commanding  place  in  the  small  group  of 
American  critics  of  art  and  literature.  Mr.  Woodberry's 
books  also,  especially  his  Appreciation  of  Literature  and  his 
lectures  on  race  power  in  literature  called  The  Torch,  reveal 
unusual  breadth  of  view  and  rare  penetration,  and  are  of 
stimulating  suggestiveness. 

It  is  significant,  moreover,  that  Henry  James  felt  obliged 
to  expatriate  himself  in  order  to  find  a  congenial  atmos 
phere  in  which  to  write  his  novels  and  stories.  The  con 
clusion  might  fairly  be  drawn  from  this  circumstance  that 
imaginative  literature  requires  other  conditions  for  its 
development  than  those  which  have  prevailed  for  the  last 
thirty  or  forty  years  in  the  United  States,  and  Mark  Twain's 
books  seem  to  make  him  the  sole  and  distinguished  excep 
tion  which  proves  the  rule.  A  higher  point  has  been 
reached  in  the  short  stories  than  in  all  but  a  very  few  of  the 
novels  of  this  period — by  Bret  Harte,  for  example,  in  three 


SHORT   STORIES  AND   NOVELS  261 

or  four  of  his  sketches  of  life  and  character  among  the 
Argonauts  of  '49,  who  ought  to  have  included  just  such 
types  as  he  pictures,  even  if,  as  is  charged,  they  did  not; 
by  Mr.  Page  in  Marse  Chan  and  Meh  Lady;  by  Mr.  Cable 
in  Old  Creole  Days;  and  perhaps  by  Miss  Jewett  and  Miss 
Wilkins  in  their  sketches  of  New  England  village  characters. 

Mr.  Howells  is  at  his  best  in  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham 
and  in  A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes,  possibly  because  in  these 
two  novels  he  seemed  to  be  less  conscious  than  elsewhere 
of  the  obligations  of  his  theory  of  realism.  It  was  prob 
ably  inevitable  that  the  application  of  this  theory  to  the 
portrayal  in  fiction  of  the  New  England  life  and  character 
of  the  'seventies  and  'eighties  of  the  last  century  should 
produce  somewhat  disappointing  results;  and  yet  the  high 
and  serious  purpose  which  has  controlled  Mr.  Howells's 
long,  varied  and  honorable  literary  career,  as  well  as  his 
consistently  excellent  craftsmanship  throughout  that  ca 
reer,  entitle  him  to  a  foremost  place  among  the  novelists 
of  this  period.  In  sharp  contrast  to  Mr.  Howells's  New 
England  were  the  warmth  and  brilliancy  of  color,  the  spark 
ling  gayety  and  the  romantic  glamour  of  the  picture  of 
Creole  Louisiana  in  the  early  years  of  the  century  which 
Mr.  Cable  drew  in  The  Grandissimes.  Mrs.  Wharton's 
brilliant  intellectual  qualities  and  her  extraordinary  ver 
satility,  with  her  technical  proficiency,  make  her  by  far 
the  most  interesting  figure  in  American  fiction  at  the  pres 
ent  time,  despite  the  lack  of  ideals  and  of  human  sym 
pathy  in  the  characters  which  she  portrays. 

Other  forms  of  imaginative  literature  have  fared,  under 
these  conditions,  even  worse,  poetry  having  languished 
notwithstanding  the  brave  but  only  partially  successful 


262     LITERATURE,  FINE  ARTS  AND   EDUCATION 

attemps  of  Lanier,  Stoddard,  Stedman,  Aldrich  and  others 
to  give  it  vitality  and  charm.  Time  indeed  may  prove 
that  the  Hoosier  poet,  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  has  sung 
the  simple  joys  and  sorrows  of  his  people  in  verse  more 
enduring  than  that  of  any  one  of  his  contemporaries. 

Under  the  stimulus  of  the  material  prosperity  of  the 
country  and  despite  the  commercial  atmosphere  in  which 
men  like  Sargent  and  Whistler  found  it  impossible  to  work, 
the  cultivation  and  practice  of  the  fine  arts  went  on  assid 
uously  in  this  period.  The  Philadelphia  Exposition  of 
1876  was  a  potent  influence  in  arousing  a  popular  interest 
in  art  matters.  It  was  in  this  year  that  George  Fuller 
exhibited  the  first  collection  of  his  pictures  in  Boston,  and 
it  was  at  about  this  time  also  that  a  group  of  young  Ameri 
can  painters,  returning  with  high  ideals  from  Paris  and 
Munich,  organized  the  Society  of  American  Artists  and 
exerted  a  decided  influence  upon  the  technique  of  the  art. 
It  was  in  1876  too  that  John  La  Farge  began  the  task  of 
providing  a  decorative  scheme  for  the  interior  of  Trinity 
Church  in  Boston — the  virtual  beginning  of  mural  paint 
ing  in  the  United  States.  In  the  years  that  followed 
George  Inness  and  Homer  Martin  produced  some  notable 
landscapes,  while  the  work  in  different  fields  of  men  like 
Sargent,  Whistler,  La  Farge,  Vedder,  Wyant  and  Winslow 
Homer  was  of  a  character  to  win  for  them  a  wide  reputa 
tion.  The  names  of  the  men  who  have  attained  rank  in 
sculpture  are  few.  Ward,  the  pioneer  in  this  art,  was 
followed  by  Saint-Gaudens,  probably  the  most  distinguished 
of  the  small  group;  Warner,  French,  MacMonr.les  and 
Bartlett,  several  of  whom  are  still  alive  and  may  win  fur 
ther  honors. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   ARCHITECTURE  263 

Two  important  results  affecting  the  development  of  the 
fine  arts  in  the  United  States  followed  from  the  Columbian 
Exposition  in  Chicago  in  1893.  The  dormant  aesthetic 
sense  of  the  people  of  the  middle  West  was  quickened  into 
life  and  activity,  and  the  lesson  of  the  intimate  relation  of 
sculpture  and  of  mural  painting  to  architecture  was  im 
pressed  upon  all  sensitive  observers.  Since  that  time  art 
museums  have  been  founded  in  all  the  large  and  in  not  a 
few  of  the  smaller  cities  of  the  middle  West,  and  art  socie 
ties  with  various  aims  have  been  organized  without  num 
ber.  Early  in  1912  an  art  museum  costing  half  a  million 
dollars  was  opened  in  Toledo,  and  Detroit  and  Minneapolis 
had  similar  projects  well  in  hand.  Nor  is  interest  in  art 
confined  to  the  middle  West ;  it  extends  as  far  south  as  New 
Orleans  and  as  far  west  as  Los  Angeles.  In  both  of  these 
cities  plans  are  maturing  for  the  founding  of  art  museums. 

With  the  rapid  growth  of  the  population  and  with  a 
corresponding  increase  in  the  needs,  as  well  as  in  the  wealth, 
of  states,  municipalities,  corporations  and  public  and  pri 
vate  societies,  it  was  inevitable  that  architecture  should 
flourish  in  this  era  of  activity  and  expansion.  And  this 
art  owes  not  a  little  to  Daniel  H.  Burnham,  the  chief  archi 
tect  and  director  of  works  of  the  exposition  at  Chicago, 
who  was  responsible  for  the  general  scheme  of  the  buildings, 
courts,  lagoons,  etc.,  the  stately  and  beautiful  effect  of 
which  left  a  deep  and  abiding  impression  upon  all  visitors, 
and  the  educational  value  of  which  was  of  the  highest. 
The  buildings,  public  and  private,  which  have  been  erected 
in  the  principal  cities  of  the  country  in  the  twenty  years 
since  the  Chicago  Exposition  was  held  are  monuments 
to  the  skill  and  taste  of  a  remarkable  group  of  men— 


264    LITERATURE,  FINE  ARTS  AND  EDUCATION 

McKim,  Gilbert,  White,  Hastings,  Post,  Flagg,  Cook,  Sul 
livan  and  Cram,  to  mention  only  a  few  of  the  many  that 
might  also  be  named,  all  of  whom  have  shown  themselves 
to  be  worthy  successors  to  those  leaders  in  the  latter-day 
development  of  architecture  in  America,  Richardson  and 
Hunt.  The  growth  of  interest  in  mural  painting  naturally 
followed  this  activity  in  architecture;  and  in  the  last 
twenty-five  years  public  buildings  in  nearly  every  part  of 
the  country  have  been  enriched  with  paintings  by  the 
best-known  artists  of  the  period — La  Farge,  Blashfield, 
Sargent,  Abbey,  Simmons,  Alexander,  Cox,  Turner,  and 
Millet,  to  mention  no  others. 

The  future,  moreover,  seems  to  be  full  of  promise.  For 
it  is  doubtful  if  in  any  other  country  or  in  any  other  age 
has  there  been  so  vast  an  expenditure  of  time,  energy  and 
money  as  in  the  United  States  during  the  last  quarter  of 
a  century,  having  for  its  objects  the  cultivation  of  taste 
and  of  an  appreciation  of  beauty  and  the  training  of  the 
intelligence.  The  lavish  generosity  of  American  merchant 
princes  in  founding  and  endowing  institutions  devoted  to 
education,  philanthropy  or  art,  has  gone  hand  in  hand 
with  an  equally  lavish  expenditure  of  millions  of  dollars 
for  the  enrichment  of  museums  and  collections,  public 
and  private,  with  treasures  of  all  branches  of  art  gathered 
from  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe.  So  general  has  this 
custom  become  that  one  can  scarcely  take  up  a  morning 
newspaper  without  finding  in  it  the  record  of  some  munifi 
cent  gift  or  bequest  of  this  nature. 

The  possession  of  wealth  and  of  taste  cultivated  by 
foreign  travel  has  made  art  collectors  of  not  a  few  Ameri 
can  millionaires,  who  in  the  last  twenty  years,  and  more 


w  H 
w  o 

H    O 


266     LITERATURE,  FINE  ARTS  AND   EDUCATION 

particularly  in  the  opening  decade  of  the  present  century, 
despoiled  the  private  galleries  of  Europe  of  many  of  their 
choicest  possessions.  Such  private  collections  as  those  of 
Mr.  Morgan,  Mr.  Frick,  Mr.  Altman,  Mrs.  Havemeyer, 
and  Mr.  Huntington  in  New  York;  Mr.  Johnson  and  Mr. 
Widener,  of  Philadelphia;  Mr.  Freer,  of  Detroit,  and  Mrs. 
Gardner,  of  Boston,  to  name  only  a  few  of  those  that 
might  be  included  in  such  a  list,  are  destined  ultimately 
to  find  their  way  into  public  galleries  and  to  exert  an  in 
fluence  upon  the  taste  of  the  people  that  can  scarcely  be 
over-estimated.  The  extent  of  this  influence  may  be  in 
ferred  from  the  fact  that  in  the  year  1911  the  attendance 
at  the  Art  Institute  of  Chicago  was  more  than  700,000. 
All  schools  of  painting,  to  say  nothing  of  other  classes  of 
art  objects,  are  represented  in  these  collections.  They 
are  especially  rich  in  works  by  the  Dutch  masters,  more 
than  eighty  examples  of  Rembrandt  now  being  owned  by 
American  collectors  and  American  art  museums. 

Since  the  opening  of  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  in 
New  York  in  1883  interest  in  music  has  broadened  greatly. 
As  a  result  of  this  increased  interest  Boston,  Chicago  and 
Philadelphia,  as  well  as  New  York  and  Brooklyn,  have 
had  regular  opera  seasons,  while  the  Chicago  company,  in 
1911-1912,  went  to  St.  Paul  and  St.  Louis  for  brief  seasons, 
and  also  gave  a  few  performances  in  Baltimore,  Cleveland, 
Milwaukee,  Cincinnati  and  Pittsburgh.  New  Orleans 
meanwhile  has  enjoyed  its  annual  season  of  French  opera, 
which  can  almost  be  called  indigenous. 

Not  many  years  ago  Boston,  New  York  and  Chicago 
were  the  only  cities  in  the  country  maintaining  perma 
nent  orchestras.  Gradually  similar  organizations  were 


MUSIC   AND   THE   DRAMA  267 

established  in  Philadelphia,  Pittsburgh  and  several  of  the 
larger  cities  of  the  central  states,  notably  Cincinnati,  St. 
Paul,  Minneapolis,  St.  Louis  and  Kansas  City,  while 
orchestras  have  been  maintained  for  longer  or  shorter 
periods  in  various  cities  in  the  Pacific  coast  states,  Port 
land,  Seattle,  San  Francisco  and  Los  Angeles.  Few,  if 
any,  of  these  organizations  have  been  self-supporting,  but 
the  public-spirited  generosity  of  Mr.  Higginson,  of  Boston, 
and  of  the  men  who  meet  the  annual  deficit  of  the  opera 
in  New  York,  has  aroused  a  spirit  of  emulation  in  other 
cities,  with  the  result  that  more  good  music,  orchestral  and 
operatic,  is  to  be  heard  annually  in  the  larger  cities  of  the 
United  States  than  can  be  heard  anywhere  save  in  twro  or 
three  cities  in  Germany  and  perhaps  in  Paris. 

The  drama,  on  the  other  hand,  has  lagged  far  behind 
music  in  this  period.  The  substitution  of  the  "star" 
system  for  the  stock  companies  as  they  existed  in  the 
'eighties  and  'nineties  of  the  last  century  has  brought  about 
a  decided  deterioration  in  the  character  of  the  plays  pro 
duced  as  well  as  in  the  art  of  acting.  Almost  alone  among 
native  dramatists  Augustus  Thomas  has  pictured  Ameri 
can  character  and  conditions  with  intelligence,  insight,  and 
humor,  and  with  rare  constructive  skill.  Some  persons, 
moreover,  of  sanguine  temperament  find  encouragement 
for  the  future  in  the  work  of  several  young  playwrights 
with  Harvard  affiliations  who  have  come  to  the  fore  in 
recent  years. 

If  much  has  been  done  since  the  Civil  War  to  encourage 
the  practice  and  the  appreciation  of  the  fine  arts,  more 
yet  has  been  done  to  multiply  in  all  directions  the  fa 
cilities  for  popular  and  advanced  education.  The  multi- 


268    LITERATURE,   FINE  ARTS  AND   EDUCATION 

millionaires  of  the  country,  largely  self-educated  men  them 
selves,  have  been  foremost  in  this  work.  The  pioneer 
among  American  philanthropists  of  this  type  was  George 
Peabody,  who  left  several  millions  to  be  devoted  to  the 
cause  of  education  in  the  South.  John  D.  Rockefeller  is 
Mr.  Peabody's  legitimate  successor,  for  one  of  the  chief 
objects  of  the  General  Education  Board,  the  various  funds 
of  which  contributed  by  Mr.  Rockefeller  amount  to  more 
than  $50,000,000,  is  the  promotion  of  practical  farm 
ing  and  of  high-school  education  in  the  southern  states. 
The  advancement  of  higher  education  throughout  the 
country  is  also  one  of  the  purposes  to  which  the  General 
Education  Board  devotes  its  income,  Mr.  Rockefeller's 
interest  in  this  work  having  been  already  abundantly 
shown  by  the  millions  which  he  has  given,  since  it  was 
founded  in  1892,  to  the  University  of  Chicago. 

It  seems  scarcely  necessary  to  refer  to  Mr.  Carnegie's 
benefactions  to  the  cause  of  both  popular  and  higher  edu 
cation,  so  well  known  are  they.  He  has  given  nearly  $60,- 
000,000  to  build  libraries,  $22,000,000  to  advance  scientific 
research  through  the  Carnegie  Institution  of  Washington, 
$20,000,000  to  build  and  equip  the  technical  schools  at 
Pittsburgh  known  as  the  Carnegie  Institute,  $15,000,000 
to  provide  retiring  allowances  for  college  professors,  $10,- 
000,000  to  further  the  cause  of  peace  among  nations,  and 
a  like  sum  to  reward  acts  of  heroism. 

This  list,  at  the  head  of  which  stand  the  names  of  Mr. 
Rockefeller  and  Mr.  Carnegie,  might  be  extended  at  length 
by  reference  to  Mr.  Morgan's  gifts  to  the  Harvard  Medical 
School,  to  Isaac  C.  Wyman's  bequest  to  Princeton  Uni 
versity,  to  the  Ranken  gift  of  $3,000,000  to  the  Ranken 


270    LITERATURE,   FINE  ARTS  AND   EDUCATION 

Trade  School  of  St.  Louis,  to  Mr.  Pulitzer's  bequests  to 
Columbia  University  for  a  school  of  journalism  and  for 
other  objects,  and  to  many  equally  princely  benefactions. 
The  foregoing,  however,  will  indicate  in  a  general  way  the 
scale  of  really  royal  munificence  upon  which  the  facilities 
in  this  country  for  popular,  technical  and  higher  education 
have  been  and  are  still  being  enlarged  and  extended. 

At  the  foundation  of  these  multifarious  intellectual  and 
aesthetic  activities  lie  the  public-school  system  of  the 
nation  and  the  institutions,  public  and  private,  for  higher 
education.  Few  people  have  any  adequate  conception  of 
the  extent  and  the  value  of  the  educational  machinery  of 
the  country,  or  of  the  cost  of  keeping  this  vast  and  com 
plicated  machinery  in  operation.  The  expense  to  the 
people  of  the  single  state  of  New  York  for  educating  its 
pupils  in  the  year  1911  was  nearly  $77,000,000.  In  the 
interval  of  thirty-nine  years  between  1869-1870  and  1908- 
1909  the  average  annual  expenditure  for  educating  a  pupil 
in  the  public  schools  of  the  entire  country  increased  from 
$12.71  to  $31.65,  representing  an  advance  in  the  annual 
cost  charge  per  capita  of  population  from  $1.64  to  $4.45, 
the  number  of  pupils  enrolled  increasing  in  this  interval 
from  6,871,522  to  17,506,175.  Meanwhile  the  value  of  the 
property  devoted  to  the  uses  of  the  public  schools  grew 
from  somewhat  over  $130,000,000  to  nearly  $968,000,000. 

In  the  field  of  higher  education  one  finds  that  the  num 
ber  of  universities,  colleges  and  technological  schools  from 
which  the  government  received  reports  for  the  year  ended 
June  30,  1910,  was  six  hundred  and  two.  Of  these  insti 
tutions,  states  or  municipalities  controlled  eighty-nine, 
while  five  hundred  and  thirteen  were  under  the  manage- 


INDUSTRIAL  AND   TRADE   SCHOOLS  271 

ment  of  private  corporations.  Colleges  for  women,  which 
forty  years  ago  could  be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one 
hand,  have  multiplied  until  now  they  number  more  than  a 
hundred  in  the  United  States.  The  aggregate  enrolment 
in  the  six  hundred  and  two  institutions  for  higher  educa 
tion  reporting  in  1910  to  the  government,  all  departments 
—preparatory,  collegiate,  graduate  and  professional,  being 
included,  was  301,818.  The  value  of  the  grounds  and 
buildings  owned  by  these  institutions  was  estimated  at 
about  $280,000,000;  their  productive  funds  amounted  to 
nearly  $260,000,000,  yielding  an  annual  income  of  over 
$11,500,000;  and  their  total  annual  receipts  from  all 
sources  were  over  $80,000,000. 

The  most  noticeable  tendency  of  recent  years  in  the 
field  of  education  has  been  in  the  direction  of  industrial 
and  trade  schools  similar  to  those  existing  throughout 
Germany,  the  usual  distinction  being  that  industrial  schools 
deal  with  the  uses  and  products  of  machinery  and  trade 
schools  with  the  use  of  tools.  This  tendency  has  revealed 
itself  not  only  in  the  public  schools  in  cities  and  towns 
throughout  the  country,  but  in  the  institutions  of  higher 
learning  in  the  middle  West  where  there  has  been  a  decided 
drift  away  from  the  humanities  and  toward  studies  of  a 
practical  character,  especially  scientific  agriculture.  At 
the  end  of  1911  in  the  single  state  of  Minnesota  there  were 
no  fewer  than  thirty  agricultural  high-schools  receiving 
state  aid  to  the  extent  of  $2,500  each  yearly,  while  there 
were  twenty  other  high-schools  maintaining  courses  in 
agriculture  without  state  aid.  Other  neighboring  states 
are  following  the  example  of  Minnesota  in  establishing 
agricultural  schools,  the  movement  having  the  powerful 


272     LITERATURE,  FINE  ARTS  AND   EDUCATION 

support  of  the  various  bankers'  associations.  Boston  has 
had  in  successful  operation  for  a  number  of  years  a  com 
mercial  high-school  modelled  on  those  to  be  found  in  every 
large  German  city,  the  purposes  of  which  are  to  instruct 
young  men  in  modern  languages,  in  international  business 
finance  and  business  usage,  and  in  the  economical  and 
efficient  management  of  large  industrial  plants.  High- 
schools  of  this  type  are  sure  to  multiply  when  their  service- 
ableness  becomes  more  widely  known. 

The  causes  of  this  eagerness  on  the  part  of  the  people  to 
acquire  instruction  in  practical  pursuits  are  to  be  found, 
of  course,  in  the  higher  prizes  which  expanding  industries 
and  trades  offer  to  trained  minds  and  skilled  hands,  and 
in  the  increasing  difficulty  of  securing  such  prizes,  under 
modern  competition,  without  this  special  training  and  this 
exceptional  skill.  In  time  the  effects  of  this  movement 
may  be  to  modify  materially  the  aims  and  methods  of  the 
public-school  system  throughout  the  country. 

Among  the  institutions  of  higher  learning  in  the  East  the 
old  ideals  have  been  fairly  well  maintained.  Athletic  sports 
in  the  colleges,  however,  have  everywhere  assumed  more 
and  more  importance  each  year.  Foot-ball  has  almost 
ceased,  in  the  judgment  of  many  observers,  to  be  a  sport, 
there  being  few  more  serious  pursuits,  outside,  perhaps,  the 
Church  and  the  Bench.  The  spirit  of  devotion  to  Alma 
Mater  and  of  loyalty  to  college  traditions,  which  these 
young  barbarians  carry  to  a  foot-ball  contest,  is  as  lofty 
and  almost  as  awe-inspiring  as  was  the  spirit  of  patriotism 
which  Leonidas  and  his  Spartans  bore  to  Thermopylae. 
The  American  temperament,  which  accomplishes  wonder 
ful  results  when  working  in  other  channels, — as  witness 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO   CIVILIZATION  273 

Commander  Peary's  success  in  reaching  the  North  Pole  in 
the  spring  of  1909,  after  repeated  failures  in  former  years,— 
seems  to  be  the  chief  obstacle  in  the  way  at  present  of  a 
more  moderate  and  a  saner  treatment  of  this  particular 
sport. 

With  the  increase  in  population  and  wealth  throughout 
the  country,  the  size  of  the  classes  in  the  larger  universi 
ties  has  doubled  and  even  trebled  in  thirty  years,  involving 
marked  changes  in  the  relations  of  students  with  each 
other  and  with  the  officers  of  instruction.  That  these 
changes  have  been  altogether  beneficial  in  their  effects  is 
by  no  means  certain.  The  friends  of  the  smaller  colleges 
claim  for  them  advantages  which  cannot  easily  be  dis 
proved. 

Thus  it  appears,  finally,  that  the  really  important  con 
tributions  which  the  people  of  the  United  States  have  made 
to  civilization  have  been  not  so  much  of  an  intellectual  as 
of  a  political,  economic  or  religious  nature.  They  were 
summarized  by  President  Eliot  of  Harvard,  in  1896,  as 
"  peace-keeping,  religious  toleration,  the  development  of 
manhood  suffrage,  the  welcoming  of  new-comers  and  the 
diffusion  of  well-being."  Perhaps  in  the  course  of  another 
hundred  years  there  may  be  evolved  an  American  race- 
mind,  to  use  Mr.  Woodberry's  phrase,  formed  from  the 
fusion  of  the  native  stock  with  the  Italian,  Slavic,  Jew 
ish,  Scandinavian  and  German  immigrants  to  whom  this 
country  has  accorded  a  welcome,  which  will  express  itself 
in  literature  of  an  enduring  character.  If  one  would  seek 
an  expression  of  the  American  race-mind  of  the  last  quar 
ter  of  a  century,  he  must  look  for  it  in  the  irregular  sky 
line  of  the  towering  buildings  in  lower  New  York;  in  the 


274    LITERATURE,   FINE  ARTS  AND  EDUCATION 

colossal  works  of  the  Panama  Canal;  in  the  boldly  pro 
jected  railway  that  spans  the  coral  islands  from  the  main 
land  of  Florida  to  Key  West;  in  the  great  Roosevelt  dam 
in  Arizona  which  confines  the  waters  of  the  Salt  River  in  a 
reservoir  of  enormous  capacity  for  irrigation  purposes  and 
for  the  generation  of  power;  and  in  monumental  public 
buildings  like  the  Pennsylvania  Railway  Station  in  New 
York,  in  which  architectural  and  engineering  problems  are 
solved  in  combination. 


XXI 

SOURCES  OF  THE  NATION'S  WEALTH 

WITH  all  the  advantages,  therefore,  of  youth  and  of  the 
activity,  energy  and  industry  that  are  characteristic  of 
youth,  of  vast  natural  resources  and  of  a  quickening  intelli 
gence,  the  people  of  the  United  States  face  the  future  with 
confidence  and  hopefulness.  During  the  last  forty  years 
the  growth  of  the  population  of  the  country,  due  partly  to 
natural  causes  and  partly  to  the  foreigner's  zeal  for  politi 
cal  and  religious  freedom  and  for  industrial  opportunity, 
has  been  remarkable:  from  thirty-eight  and  a  half  mill 
ion  in  1870  to  fifty  million  in  1880;  to  sixty-two  and  a  half 
million  in  1890;  to  seventy-six  million  in  1900;  and  to 
ninety-two  million  in  1910.  These  people  are  distributed 
over  forty-eight  states  having  a  total  area  of  more  than 
three  million  square  miles,  the  centre  of  population  being 
in  the  city  of  Bloomington,  Ind.  If  the  inhabitants  of 
the  outlying  dependencies  of  the  nation,  the  Philippines, 
Hawaii,  Porto  Rico,  Alaska  and  Guam,  be  included  in 
the  enumeration,  it  will  be  found  that  in  1910  more  than  a 
hundred  million  people  were  living  under  the  flag  of  the 
United  States.  The  total  wealth  of  the  nation  in  1910, 
as  estimated,  with  the  usual  reservations,  by  the  chief 
statistician  of  the  Bureau  of  the  Census,  Joseph  A.  Hill, 
was  $142,000,000,000,  figures  that  are  too  big  to  be  com 
prehensible,  except,  perhaps,  in  comparison  with  the  total 
wealth  of  Great  Britain,  which  was  estimated  by  the  Lon- 

275 


276         SOURCES   OF   THE   NATION'S   WEALTH 

don  Economist  to  have  been  approximately  $68,000,000,000 
in  1909,  less  than  half  that  of  the  United  States  in  the 
following  year. 

Of  the  people  in  the  United  States  more  than  one-third 
were  found  by  the  census  of  1910  to  be  either  of  foreign 
birth  or  of  foreign  parentage.  In  New  England  and  in  the 
middle  Atlantic  states  this  foreign  element  constituted 
considerably  more  than  a  half  of  the  entire  population. 
The  foreign-born  whites  in  the  middle  Atlantic  states  in 
creased  in  the  years  from  1900  to  1910  more  than  twice  as 
fast  as  did  the  native  whites.  The  total  number  of  immi 
grants  who  arrived  in  the  country  during  the  decade  was 
heavy,  nearly  nine  million;  and  yet,  owing  to  the  return 
migration,  especially  following  the  panic  of  1907,  and  to 
deaths,  the  net  increase  in  the  foreign-born  population 
was  only  a  little  over  three  million,  and  the  percentage  of 
foreign-born  whites  in  the  population  was  found  to  be  no 
greater  in  1910  than  it  wras  in  1870. 

These  immigrants  came  for  the  most  part  from  central 
and  southeastern  Europe  and  from  southern  Italy.  The 
south  Italians,  whom  the  immigration  authorities  differ 
entiate  racially  from  those  who  come  from  north  of  Rome, 
the  Hebrews  and  the  Poles  made  up  the  most  numerous 
groups.  Then  came,  in  order  of  numbers,  the  Germans, 
Scandinavians,  Irish  and  English;  and,  after  them,  the 
Slovaks,  north  Italians,  Magyars,  the  Croats  and  Serbs 
and  the  Greeks.  The  races  that  sent  the  largest  percen 
tages  of  their  populations  to  the  United  States  were  the 
Hebrew,  from  western  Russia,  Poland  and  Austria-Hun 
gary;  the  Slovaks,  driven  from  northern  Hungary  by  the 
persecution  of  the  Magyars  who  regard  them  and  treat 


FOREIGN  AND   NATIVE   ELEMENTS  277 

them  as  an  inferior  race;  and  the  Croats  and  Serbs,  from 
the  region  bordering  on  the  northern  Adriatic. 

The  majority  of  the  more  than  nine  million  immigrants 
who  came  to  America  between  1880  and  1900  settled  in 
Minnesota,  the  Dakotas,  Michigan,  Wisconsin  and  in  other 
states  of  the  middle  and  far  West,  attracted  by  the  farming 
opportunities  which  the  virgin  soil  of  this  region  presented. 
Since  1900,  however,  the  tide  has  set  toward  the  indus 
trial  centres  of  the  New  England  and  the  middle  Atlantic 
states,  the  children  of  earlier  immigrants  showing  a  dis 
position,  however,  to  migrate  to  the  north  central  states. 
As  a  result  of  this  tendency  toward  the  manufacturing 
towns,  practically  a  third  of  the  white  population  in  Rhode 
Island  in  1910  was  foreign-born.  Massachusetts,  New 
York,  Connecticut,  North  Dakota  and  Minnesota  were 
not  far  behind  Rhode  Island,  with  percentages  of  foreign- 
born  whites  varying  from  nearly  a  third  to  slightly  more 
than  a  quarter  of  the  population.  When,  however,  the 
number  of  those  born  in  the  United  States  of  foreign  parent 
age  was  added  to  the  number  of  foreign-born  whites,  it  was 
found  that  in  no  fewer  than  thirteen  states  this  foreign 
element  was  in  the  majority.  In  fact,  this  foreign  element 
constituted  nearly  three-quarters  of  the  entire  population 
of  Minnesota  and  of  North  Dakota,  nearly  or  quite  two- 
thirds  of  the  population  of  Rhode  Island,  Wisconsin,  Massa 
chusetts,  Connecticut  and  New  York,  and  more  than  half 
the  population  of  New  Jersey,  Michigan,  South  Dakota, 
Montana,  Utah  and  Illinois.  In  twenty-nine  states,  how 
ever,  more  than  half  the  population  consisted  of  native- 
born  whites  of  native  parentage;  and  in  twelve  states  this 
native  element  represented  more  than  two-thirds  of  the 


278        SOURCES  OF  THE  NATION'S  WEALTH 

population.  West  Virginia,  in  which  no  less  than  eighty- 
five  and  three-tenths  per  cent  of  the  white  population  was 
of  native  stock,  had  the  distinction  of  standing  at  the  head 
of  this  list,  the  other  states  being  Kentucky,  Oklahoma, 
Indiana,  New  Mexico,  Tennessee,  Missouri,  Kansas,  Ar 
kansas,  Maine,  North  Carolina  and  Texas. 

The  magnet  that  attracted  these  millions  of  immigrants 
in  the  present  century  was  the  American  factory,  iron, 
steel,  and  similar  mills  being,  of  course,  included  in  this 
generic  term.  Under  the  stimulus  as  well  as  the  shelter  of 
the  protective  tariff  the  growth  of  these  manufacturing 
interests  in  the  United  States  has  been  remarkable.  Half 
a  century  ago  the  value  for  a  single  year  of  the  finished 
products  of  all  the  factories  of  the  country  was  consid 
erably  less  than  two  billion  dollars;  for  the  year  1909  this 
value  had  increased  to  more  than  twenty  and  a  half  billion 
dollars.  Fifty  years  ago  the  annual  wages  paid  to  work 
men  in  American  factories  amounted  to  a  total  of  less  than 
four  hundred  million  dollars;  for  the  year  1909  they  came 
to  nearly  three  and  a  half  billion  dollars.  At  the  head 
of  the  list  of  manufacturing  states  stands  New  York.  Ar 
ranged  in  the  order  of  the  relative  value  of  their  man 
ufactured  products  for  the  year  1909,  the  twelve  states 
following  New  York  were  Pennsylvania,  Illinois,  Massa 
chusetts,  Ohio,  New  Jersey,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Indiana, 
Missouri,  California,  Connecticut  and  Minnesota.  These 
thirteen  states  produced  about  three-quarters  in  value 
of  all  the  manufactures  of  the  entire  country,  increasing 
their  products  in  five  years  in  quantities  varying  from 
nearly  a  third  in  the  case  of  Missouri  to  not  far  from  two- 
thirds  in  the  case  of  Michigan.  The  feature  of  this  array 


MANUFACTURES  AND  FARMING  INTERESTS     279 

which  possesses  the  greatest  significance  is  to  be  found  in 
the  development  of  manufactures  in  the  central  states 
which,  twenty-five  years  ago,  were  devoted  almost  exclu 
sively  to  agriculture.  And  a  further  illustration  of  this 
tendency  is  revealed  in  the  fact  that  in  five  years  the 
capital  invested  in  manufactures  was  more  than  doubled 
in  North  Dakota  and  Oklahoma  and  nearly  doubled  in 
Kansas. 

Those  economists  who  maintain  that  the  manufactur 
ing  industries  of  the  country  have  been  built  up  in  the  last 
fifty  years  at  the  expense  of  other  interests,  and  especially 
of  farming,  are  able  to  cite  not  a  few  facts  in  support 
of  their  contention.  Superficially  considered  the  farming 
interests  of  the  country  seem  to  be  in  the  highest  degree 
prosperous.  The  figures  of  the  government  relating  to 
farming  are,  in  truth,  so  big  as  to  be  beyond  the  power  of 
the  imagination  to  grasp.  The  total  value,  for  example, 
of  farm  lands  and  buildings  more  than  doubled  in  the  ten 
years  from  1900  to  1910,  having  reached  at  the  latter  date 
the  stupendous  total  of  more  than  $34,500,000,000.  The 
value  of  the  farm  lands  even  in  the  arid  and  semi-arid 
regions  of  the  far  West  increased  more  than  threefold  in 
this  interval,  the  result  partly  of  irrigation  and  partly  of 
natural  development.  The  values,  too,  placed  upon  the 
various  crops  seem  to  those  unacquainted  with  the  facts 
almost  beyond  belief.  The  value  of  the  corn  harvested  in 
1911,  corn  having  dethroned  cotton  and  having  become 
king  in  America  of  all  the  products  of  the  soil,  was  over 
$1,500,000,000;  of  the  cotton,  more  than  $750,000,000;  of 
the  hay,  nearly  $700,000,000;  of  the  wheat,  about  $543  r 
000,000;  of  the  oats,  nearly  $415,000,000,  and  so  on.  Ac- 


280         SOURCES   OF   THE   NATION'S   WEALTH 

cording  to  the  estimates  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
the  value  of  all  the  farm  products  of  the  year  1911,  in 
cluding  cattle,  meats  and  dairy  products,  reached  the 
incomprehensible  total  of  not  far  from  $8,500,000,000. 

These  figures,  impressive  as  they  are,  do  not,  however, 
tell  the  whole  story.  In  the  first  place,  while  improve 
ments  and  additional  acreage  brought  under  cultivation 
will  account  for  a  certain  portion  of  the  enormous  ad 
vance  in  the  values  attached  to  farm  lands  and  buildings 
in  the  decade,  one  of  the  leading  causes  of  this  advance  was 
the  general  appreciation  of  land  values  which,  of  course, 
added  nothing  to  the  real  economic  wealth  of  the  country. 
Then,  again,  farming  as  an  industry  failed  to  hold  its  own 
with  the  growth  of  the  population  of  the  country  during 
this  period.  From  1900  to  1910  the  population  increased 
twenty-one  per  cent,  while  the  percentage  of  the  popula 
tion  engaged  in  farming  decreased  from  thirty-five  to  thirty- 
two.  Moreover,  the  percentage  of  improved  farm  lands, 
instead  of  increasing  proportionally  in  the  decade,  as  it 
should  have  done,  actually  declined  from  five  and  a  half 
to  five  and  two-tenths  per  capita  of  population.  In  the 
same  period  the  number  of  wage-earners  in  American  fac 
tories  increased  about  forty  per  cent.  In  other  words, 
while  the  growth  of  manufactures  was  about  twice  as  rapid 
as  the  increase  in  population,  agriculture  failed  signally 
to  keep  pace  with  that  increase. 

The  same  tendencies,  from  the  field  to  the  factory,  from 
agriculture  to  manufactures,  are  observable  in  Europe  and 
especially  in  Germany,  and  are  due  to  the  mighty  struggle, 
silent  but  constant,  which  is  going  on  among  the  most 
progressive  nations  for  industrial  and  commercial  suprem- 


TWO  VIEWS   OF  A  GIANT  HARVESTER,  AS  USED  IN  CALIFORNIA. 
Cuts,  threshes  and  sacks  grain  at  the  rate  of  from  1,500  to  1,800  sacks  a  day. 


282         SOURCES   OF   THE   NATION'S   WEALTH 

acy.  The  effects  of  the  unprecedented  industrial  expan 
sion  and  of  the  comparative  neglect  of  agriculture  in  the 
United  States  have  shown  themselves  in  greatly  decreased 
exports  and  in  materially  increased  imports  of  foodstuffs, 
changes  so  pronounced  in  character  as  to  be  accepted  by 
economists  as  in  themselves  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the 
high  prices  that  prevail  for  these  commodities.  In  the 
twelve  years,  for  example,  from  1900  to  1911,  inclusive, 
exports  from  the  United  States  of  breadstuff s  declined  from 
$251,000,000  to  $136,000,000,  and  of  meats  and  dairy  prod 
ucts  from  $187,000,000  to  $136,000,000.  In  the  same 
period  the  imports  into  the  country  of  these  foodstuffs 
increased  respectively  from  $2,000,000  to  $15,000,000  and 
from  $3,000,000  to  $14,000,000  in  value.  Interpreted, 
these  facts  mean  that  the  consumers  of  foodstuffs  in  the 
United  States  have  multiplied  so  much  more  rapidly  in 
recent  years  than  the  producers  of  these  commodities,  that 
each  season  there  is  a  smaller  surplus  for  export  and  a 
greater  demand  for  foreign  supplies. 

The  only  remedies  for  this  condition  of  affairs  are  in 
creased  farm  acreage  or  improved  farming  methods.  Appar 
ently  there  is  ample  room  for  both  remedies  to  be  applied. 
For  the  single  state  of  Minnesota,  which  one  is  apt  to  think 
of  as  a  huge  granary,  had,  in  1911,  no  fewer  than  forty-five 
million  acres  of  good  farming  land  awaiting  cultivation, — 
more  than  twice  as  much  as  was  under  the  plough.  Gov 
ernment  experts,  moreover,  assert  that  American  farmers 
should  produce  two,  and  might  produce  three,  bushels  of 
corn  where  they  now  produce  one,  the  average  for  the  1911 
crop  having  been  less  than  thirty  bushels  to  the  acre.  The 
same  defective  methods  also  are  in  use  in  the  cultivation  of 


COAL,   IRON  AND   OTHER   MINERALS          283 

potatoes,  the  average  yield  of  which  per  acre  has  declined 
steadily  in  recent  years — from  one  hundred  and  six  bush 
els  in  1909  to  about  eighty-one  bushels  in  1911. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  agricultural  are  the  mineral 
resources  of  the  country,  from  which  vast  stores  of  wealth 
are  derived  each  year.  Arranged  in  the  order  of  their 
value  for  the  year  1910,  the  principal  mineral  products 
were  coal,  iron,  clay,  copper,  petroleum,  gold,  stone,  natu 
ral  gas,  cement  and  lead.  In  the  last  few  years  the  quan 
tity  of  coal  mined  in  the  United  States  has  been  in  the 
neighborhood  of  half  a  billion  tons  annually,  the  proportion 
of  bituminous  to  anthracite  being  approximately  five  and 
a  half  to  one.  The  value  of  this  coal  at  the  mines  would 
be  considerably  over  $600,000,000.  As  the  production  of 
iron  is  sometimes  cited  as  an  index  of  the  industrial  posi 
tion  of  a  country,  it  is  perhaps  worthy  of  note  that  in  1911 
the  quantity  produced  in  the  United  States  was  more  than 
23,500,000,000  tons  as  against  less  than  15,500,000,000  tons 
for  Germany  and  about  10,000,000  tons  for  Great  Britain. 
The  United  States  doubled  its  output  of  iron  in  the  eight 
years  from  1882  to  1890,  and,  in  the  thirteen  years  fol 
lowing,  the  output  was  again  doubled.  After  1903,  owing 
to  the  increased  demand  from  industrial  plants,  the  pro 
duction  of  iron  advanced  with  great  rapidity  and  with 
occasional  marked  recessions.  The  growth  of  production 
in  Germany  proceeded  meanwhile  more  slowly  but  more 
regularly,  while  in  Great  Britain  it  remained  practically 
stationary.  In  1911  the  United  States  produced  two-thirds 
of  the  world's  supply  of  petroleum,  about  200,000,000 
barrels,  of  which  perhaps  73,000,000  barrels  came  from 
California  wells.  Of  the  gold  mined  in  the  world  in  1910, 


284         SOURCES   OF   THE   NATION'S   WEALTH 

estimated  by  the  director  of  the  United  States  Mint  to 
have  been  about  $455,000,000 — less  in  value,  by  the  way, 
than  the  corn  or  the  cotton  or  the  hay  or  the  wheat  crop 
of  the  United  States  alone  in  the  single  year  1911— 
American  mines,  including  those  in  Alaska,  yielded  not.  far 
from  $100,000,000. 

The  coal  and  iron  mines  of  northern  Alabama,  Georgia 
and  Tennessee,  with  the  establishment  of  textile,  cotton 
seed  oil  and  other  industries,  and  with  the  adoption  of  a 
more  diversified  range  of  farming,  have  brought  to  the 
South,  in  the  last  thirty  years,  a  degree  of  prosperity  nearly 
if  not  fully  proportionate  to  that  enjoyed  by  other  parts 
of  the  country.  Great  tracts  of  rich  land  in  Louisiana, 
Mississippi  and  Arkansas  have  been  reclaimed  by  drain 
age  and  made  available  for  agricultural  uses.  Throughout 
this  region  corn  is  replacing  cotton  as  the  staple  crop.  In 
all  parts  of  the  South,  moreover,  the  people,  through  varied 
manufactures  and  diversified  farm  products,  have  become 
independent  of  the  North,  and  have  at  the  same  time 
acquired  a  financial  and  economic  position  of  far  solider 
strength  than  any  they  ever  occupied.  Important  results, 
political  and  social  as  well  as  economic,  seem  likely  to 
follow  from  these  changes.  As  one  result,  for  instance,  of 
the  development  of  manufacturing  industries,  sentiment 
in  many  parts  of  the  South  has  at  last  become  friendly 
to  the  principle  underlying  a  protective  tariff.  The  great 
need  of  the  South  is  immigration.  Northern  capital  in 
large  amounts  has  gone  into  the  South  in  the  last  twenty 
years.  Foreign  immigrants,  however,  continue  to  show 
the  same  unwillingness  to  compete  as  laborers  with  negroes 
that  they  showed  before  slavery  was  abolished,  and  how 


286         SOURCES  OF  THE  NATION'S   WEALTH 

to  overcome  this  prejudice  is  one  of  the  problems  that 
slavery  has  bequeathed  to  the  South. 

One  of  the  important  American  industries  not  hereto 
fore  included  in  this  general  summary,  in  which  the  South 
is  the  leader,  is  the  fishing  business.  The  centre  of  the 
fisheries  of  the  Atlantic  coast  in  1908,  according  to  a  special 
census  taken  for  that  year,  was  in  Chesapeake  Bay,  fully 
forty  per  cent  of  the  total  of  ninety-four  thousand  fisher 
men  hailing  from  Maryland  and  Virginia.  If  North  Caro 
lina  and  Florida  were  to  be  included,  it  would  be  found 
that  these  four  southern  states  possessed  not  far  from  two- 
thirds  of  the  men  engaged  in  this  industry,  Massachusetts 
and  Maine  contributing  only  about  one- tenth.  The  value 
of  the  fisheries  of  the  country  in  that  year  was  more  than 
fifty  million  dollars,  a  single  variety  of  shell-fish,  oysters, 
representing  nearly  a  third  of  this  total. 

In  comparison  with  the  foregoing  aspects  of  the  enor 
mously  valuable  domestic  trade  in  the  United  States, 
among  the  ninty-two  million  people  who,  in  1910,  consti 
tuted  the  "home  market,"  the  foreign  trade  of  the  coun 
try  seems  almost  insignificant.  The  great  bulk  of  the  ex 
ports  from  the  United  States,  consisting,  of  course,  of  the 
surplus  products  which  the  people  of  the  country  cannot 
consume,  is  composed  of  breadstuffs,  meats  and  dairy 
products,  manufactures  and  raw  materials  for  manufact 
ures,  like  cotton  and  copper,  and  various  forms  of  petro 
leum.  The  total  exports  for  the  year  1911  amounted  to 
somewhat  over  $2,000,000,000  in  value;  the  imports,  to 
about  $1,500,000,000.  If,  however,  these  figures  be  placed 
alongside  the  total  values  of  the  farm  products,  the  mines 
and  the  manufactures  for  the  year,  the  relative  unimpor- 


EXPORTS  OF   MANUFACTURED   PRODUCTS     287 

tance  of  the  foreign  trade  of  the  country  becomes  at  once 
apparent. 

The  value,  for  example,  of  the  manufactures  ready  for 
use  which  were  exported  from  the  United  States  in  1911 
was  probably  less  than  four  per  cent  of  the  total  value  of 
the  manufactures  of  the  country  for  that  year.  The  most 
important  of  these  manufactures  were  the  products  of  the 
iron  and  steel  mills;  and  yet  in  1910,  the  latest  year  for 
which  comparative  figures  are  available,  the  United  States 
was  far  behind  its  two  chief  competitors  in  this  profitable 
branch  of  trade.  The  values  of  the  exports  of  manu 
factured  iron  and  steel  in  that  year  for  the  three  leading 
nations  were,  approximately,  $377,000,000  for  the  United 
Kingdom,  $348,000,000  for  Germany,  and  $232,000,000 
for  the  United  States.  Higher  general  cost  of  production 
in  the  United  States,  due  to  wages  and  to  other  factors, 
prevented  American  iron  and  steel  mills  from  meeting 
German  and  British  competition  in  many  lines  of  this 
valuable  international  trade.  The  greatest  encouragement 
for  the  future,  however,  is  to  be  found  in  the  steady,  if  slow, 
increase,  despite  the  relative  high  cost  of  production,  in 
the  exports  of  American  iron  and  steel,  these  exports  hav 
ing  more  than  doubled  in  value  in  the  decade  from  1901 
to  1911.  Less  than  one- tenth  of  all  of  these  exports  and 
imports  for  the  fiscal  year  1911  were  carried  in  vessels  fly 
ing  the  American  flag,  the  profits  of  more  than  nine-tenths 
of  this  carrying  trade  going  to  foreign  shipping. 

In  conclusion,  the  problems  which  confront  the  people 
of  the  United  States  are  neither  few  nor  easy  of  solution. 
They  are,  broadly  speaking,  of  three  classes:  First,  eco 
nomic  questions  of  national  concern  relating  to  the  en- 


288         SOURCES   OF   THE   NATION'S   WEALTH 

couragement  of  agriculture  and  the  education  of  farmers; 
to  the  government  supervision  and  regulation,  especially 
as  regards  the  issue  of  capital  and  the  enforcement  of  pub 
licity,  of  corporations  engaged  in  interstate  commerce;  to 
the  readjustment  of  the  tariff  schedules,  and  perhaps  of 
the  wage  rate,  so  as  to  permit  American  manufacturers  to 
sell  their  surplus  products  in  foreign  markets  at  a  profit; 
and  to  the  revival  of  the  American  merchant  marine  in 
order  that  a  larger  share  of  the  international  carrying  trade 
may  be  secured  for  United  States  vesesls. 

In  the  second  class  are  the  new  political  ideas  toward 
which  the  people  of  the  middle  West  and  of  the  far  west 
ern  states  have  shown  themselves  to  be  rather  more  hos 
pitable  than  the  more  conservative  people  of  the  East. 
These  new  ideas  include  not  only  those  devices  for  remedy 
ing  some  of  the  defects,  real  or  imagined,  of  representative 
government,  the  initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall, 
but  also  direct  nominations  and  preferential  primaries  for 
Presidential  nominees.  The  main  purpose  of  all  of  these 
novel  expedients  is  to  restore  the  rule  of  the  people;  to 
enable  the  people  to  express  and  to  carry  out  their  will 
regarding  candidates,  legislation,  and  tenure  of  office  di 
rectly  instead  of  through  delegated  authority.  Less  radi 
cal  in  character  than  these  political  innovations  have 
been  the  experiments  in  many  parts  of  the  country  with 
the  commission  form  of  government  for  cities,  along  the 
line  of  the  plan  first  put  into  successful  operation  in  Gal- 
veston,  no  fewer  than  two  hundred  cities,  in  thirty-four  of 
the  forty-eight  states  of  the  Union,  having  adopted  this 
form  of  government  by  the  spring  of  1912.  And  mean 
while  the  movement  in  favor  of  giving  votes  to  women  has 


PROBLEMS   OF   THE   FUTURE  289' 

made  such  progress  in  the  far  West  as  to  encourage  its  sup- 
f  porters  to  believe  that  only  time  will  be  necessary  to  con 
vince  the  people  of  the  central  and  eastern  states  of  its 
justice  and  wisdom. 

Not  the  least  important,  moreover,  of  the  questions  that 
press  for  solution  are  those  affecting,  in  the  third  place, 
the  relations  of  capital,  labor  and  society  in  general.  Fore 
most  among  these  questions  is  the  suppression  of  crimes 
of  violence  on  the  part  of  organized  labor.  Others  relate 
to  such  matters  as  employer's  liability,  the  prohibition  of 
child  labor  in  factories,  the  safeguarding  of  life  in  extra- 
hazardous  employments  like  mining  and  the  operation  of 
railroads,  and  the  maintenance  of  hygienic  conditions  for 
laborers  of  both  sexes. 

Difficult  of  solution  as  some  of  these  problems  may  seem, 
they  are  no  more  formidable  in  size  and  are  far  less  dis 
couraging  in  character  than  those  with  which  the  men  of 
forty  years  ago  found  themselves  confronted  when  scan 
dalous  dishonesty  prevailed  in  public  life,  when  municipal 
extravagance  and  corruption  were  wide-spread  and  brazen, 
and  when  the  delusion  of  fiat  money  was  running  riot 
throughout  a  large  part  of  the  country.  And,  to  go  back 
still  further,  how  insignificant  they  seem,  even  when  taken 
together,  compared  with  the  mighty  problem  of  saving 
the  very  life  of  the  nation  which  the  immortal  Lincoln, 
with  patience,  courage  and  infinite  faith  in  the  American 
people  whom  he  knew  so  well,  faced  in  the  spring  of  'sixty- 
one! 


INDEX 


Abbey,  Edwin  A.,  264. 
Abercrombie,    General    Sir   Robert, 

45- 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  United 
States  minister  to  England,  194, 
195;  his  Studies  Military  and  Dip 
lomatic,  203. 

Adams,    Henry,   quoted,    107,    119; 

259- 
Adams,  President  John,  79,  95,  100, 

107. 
Adams,  Samuel,  his  effective  work 

for  the  colonies,  65,  66,  68. 
Agricultural  resources  of  the  United 

States,  150,  279,  280-283. 
Aguinaldo,  General  Emilio,  252. 
Aix  la  Chapelle,  treaty  of,  44. 
Alabama,  the,  Confederate  cruiser, 

221. 
Alaska,  purchase  of,  233;    area  and 

products  of,  234. 
Aldrich,  Nelson  W.,  226,  233. 
Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  262. 
Alexander,  John  W.,  264. 
Alien  and  Sedition  laws,  99,  100. 
Altman,  Benjamin,  266. 
America,  first  appearance  in  print 

of  the  name,  n. 
American  Tobacco  Company  case, 

the,  240,  246,  248. 
Ames,  Oakes,  219. 
Amherst,  General  Jeffery,  45. 
Andros,  Sir  Edmund,  32. 
Anti-Federalists,  the,  94. 
Appomattox  Court  House,  Lee's  sur 
render  at,  199. 
Architecture,    development    of,    in 

America,  263,  264. 
Armada,  the  Spanish,  destruction  of, 


Arnold,  Benedict,  treason  of,  75,  76. 

Art,  museums,  263;  collectors,  264, 
266. 

Astor,  John  Jacob,  and  the  develop 
ment  of  the  fur  trade,  in. 

Athletic  sports  in  the  colleges,  272. 

Aviles,  Pedro  Menendez  de,  massa 
cre  of  Huguenots  in  Florida  by,  16; 
founder  of  St.  Augustine,  18. 

Babcock,  Orville  E.,  charge  against, 
216,  217. 

Bacon,  Nathaniel,  causes  of  rebellion 
of,  32. 

Balboa,  Vasco  Nunez  de,  discovery 
of  Pacific  Ocean  by,  12. 

Baldwin,  Mathias,  130. 

Baltimore,  the  Lords,  government 
of  Maryland  by,  28,  51. 

Bancroft,  George,  156;  his  History 
of  the  United  States,  165. 

Bancroft,  H.  H.,  259. 

Banks,  General  N.  P.,  192. 

Banks  and  banking,  139,  192. 

Barbary  pirates,  the,  112,  114. 

Barlow,  Joel,  112. 

Barnard,  Judge,  216. 

Barras,  Count  de,  French  fleet  under, 
joins  that  of  De  Grasse,  79. 

Barre,  Colonel,  59. 

Bartlett,  Paul  W.,  262. 

Belknap,  William  W.,  forced  to  re 
sign,  217. 

Bell,  Alexander  Graham,  and  the 
telephone,  238. 

Benjamin,  Judah  P.,  183. 

Berkeley,  Sir  William,  governor  of 
Virginia,  32,  33. 

Blaine,  James  G.,  and  railway  cor 
porations,  219,  220. 


291 


INDEX 


Bland-Allison  bill,  the,  230. 

Blashfield,  Edwin  H.,  264. 

Bonhomme  Richard,  the,  80,  195- 

Boston  massacre,  the,  59. 

Braddock,  General  Edward,  defeated 
at  Fort  Duquesne,  45. 

Bradford,  William,  governor  of  Plym 
outh  colony,  26. 

Brandywine,  battle  of  the,  72. 

Brice,  Calvin  S.,  225,  226,  227. 

Brock,  General  Sir  Isaac,  124. 

Brooks,  Preston,  assault  of,  upon 
Sumner,  180,  181. 

Brown,  John,  his  raid  upon  Harper's 
Ferry,  180,  181. 

Brown,  Nicholas,  gift  to  Rhode  Isl 
and  College,  58. 

Brown  University  founded,  58. 

Brownell,  William  C.,  quoted,  150, 
165;  the  works  of,  260. 

Bryan,  William  J.,  227,  232,  243. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  his  Thana- 
topsis,  155,  161;  poet  and  jour 
nalist,  161,  162. 

Bryce,  James,  quoted,  93;  his  Amer 
ican  ConimoHU'caltlt,  260. 

Buchanan,  President  James,  176, 
185,  187,  188. 

Buell,  General  Don  Carlos,  190. 

Bunker  Hill,  battle  of,  69. 

Bunyan,  John,  30. 

Burgoyne,  General  John,  72,  74,  75. 

Burke,  Edmund,  59. 

Burnham,  Daniel  H.,  Director  of 
Works  of  the  Chicago  Exposition, 
263. 

Burnside,  General  A.  E.,  188,  189. 

Burr,  Aaron,  105. 

Byron,  Lord,  his  influence  on  Ameri 
can  letters,  156. 

Cable,  George  W.,  261. 

Cabot,  John  and  Sebastian,  voyages 

of,  10. 
Calhoun,  John  Caldwell,  120;    and 

the  slave  question,  175,  183,  184. 
California,    its    independence    won 

from  Mexico,   136;    discovery  of 

gold  in,  136. 


Canals,  127,  128,  130,  253. 
Cardozo,  Judge,  216. 
Carnegie,  Andrew,  gifts  of,  268. 
Carolina  colonies,  the,  29,  52. 
Cartier,  Jacques,  voyages  of,  13,  16. 
Cavalier  migration  to  Virginia,  26. 

27,  53- 

Census,  of  1800,  103,  104;  of  1810, 
116;  of  1910,  276. 

Channing,  William  Ellery,  157. 

Champlain,  Samuel  de,  16;  char 
acter  of,  35,  36;  Quebec  founded 
by,  36;  explorations  of,  38;  death 
of,  38;  40. 

Charles  I,  king  of  England,  26,  20. 
42,  47. 

Charles  V,  Emperor,  12,  14,  18. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  178,  212. 

Chatham,  Earl  of,  sec  Pitt. 

Chesapeake,  the,  122,  123. 

Child,  Francis  J.,  259. 

China,  influence  of  the  United  States 
in,  252, -253. 

City  government,  the  Galveston 
plan  of,  288. 

Civil  service,  reforms  in,  236. 

Civil  War,  the,  127,  156,  170,  187 
et  scq.;  cost  of,  203;  numbers  and 
losses  in,  203-206;  results  of,  206; 
conditions  after,  208  et  seq.;  259. 

Clark,  William,  expedition  of,  109, 
no,  in. 

Clay,  Henry,  120,  138,  169. 

Clay's  Compromise  of  1850,  175. 

Clermont,  the,  112. 

Cleveland,  President  Grover,  139, 
225,  226,  227,  231;  and  the  Mon 
roe  Doctrine,  233,  234,  235;  sec 
ond  administration  of,  236. 

Clinton,  General  Sir  Henry,  72,  74, 

75,  76. 

Coal,  103;  output  of,  in  Lehigh  Val 
ley,  135;  anthracite  coal  strike, 
256;  production  of,  283. 

Colfax,  Schuyler,  219. 

Collins,  Edward  K.,  147,  148. 

Columbia,  the,  Captain  Gray's  ship, 
no,  in. 

Columbia  University  founded,  58. 


INDEX 


293 


Columbian  Exposition  in  Chicago, 
263. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  voyages  of, 
5-8,  12;  death  of,  8,  12. 

Confederation,  Articles  of,  the  de 
fects  of,  86,  87;  Maryland's  re 
fusal  to  accept,  88;  89,  90,  94. 

Confederation,  the  New  England, 
84. 

Connecticut  colony,  the,  48,  84. 

Conservation  of  public  resources, 
256,  257. 

Constitution,  the,  United  States  frig 
ate,  122,  140,  195. 

Constitution,  the  federal,  88;  the 
framers  of,  92;  a  remarkable  doc 
ument,  92,  93;  debates  on,  in  state 
conventions,  94;  ratified  by  all  the 
states  94,  95. 

Constitutional  Convention,  the, 
called,  91;  its  members,  92,  con 
troversies  in,  93;  important  ques 
tions  settled  by  compromise,  93, 
94. 

Continental  Congress,  first,  64,  65, 
86. 

Conway,  Thomas,  leader  in  conspir 
acy  against  Washington,  81. 

Cook,  Captain,  no. 

Cook,  Walter,  264. 

Cooke,  Jay,  &  Company,  219. 

Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  his  Pre 
caution,  155;  other  novels  of ,  157, 
158;  his  characteristics  as  a  writer, 
158,  162. 

Cornwallis,  Lord  Charles,  70;  de 
feated  at  Yorktown,  76,  78. 

Coronado,  Francisco  Vazquez,  ex 
pedition  of,  13. 

Cortes,  Hernando,  conquest  of  Mex 
ico  by,  13. 

Cotton,  mills  established,  102;  ex 
ports  of,  115,  116;  production  of, 
138;  193- 

Cox,  Kenyon,  264. 

Cram,  Ralph  A.,  264. 

Credit  Mobilier,  the,  219. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  30. 

Cuba,  independence  of,  254,  256. 


Cunard,  Samuel,  and  the  British 
transatlantic  service,  146. 

Dana,  Richard  Henry,  his  Two  Years 
before  the  Mast,  161. 

Dartmouth  College  founded,  58. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  180;  elected  Presi 
dent  of  the  Confederate  States  of 
America,  184;  198,  200;  character 
and  temperament  of,  202. 

Dawes,  Henry  L.,  219. 

Deane,  Silas,  74. 

Declaration  of  Independence  adopt 
ed,  70. 

Deerfield,  Mass.,  the  massacre  at,  44. 

Delaware  and  Hudson  Canal,  the, 
128. 

Delaware  colony,  the,  52. 

Democratic  party,  the,  137,  138, 
182,  198,  199,  212,  214,  221;  and 
the  tariff,  224  ct  seq. 

De  Soto,  Hernando,  expedition  of, 

13,  14- 
De  Vaca,  Cabcza,  wanderings  of,  13, 

14. 

Dewey,  Admiral  George,  250. 
Dinwiddie,  Robert,  governor  of  Vir 
ginia,  50,  51. 
Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  author  of  the 

Kansas-Nebraska   act,    176,    177; 

debates  with  Lincoln,  180,  182. 
Drake,  Sir  Francis,  voyages  of,  13, 18. 
Drama,  the,  stagnation  in,  267. 
Dred  Scott  case,  the,  180,  181,  182. 
Dutch,  the,  occupation  of  New  Neth- 

erland,  27,  28,  34. 
Duquesne,  Fort,  Braddock  defeated 

at,  45;    taken  by  the  English,  45. 

Early,  General  Jubal  A.,  198. 

Economist,  London,  cited,  276. 

Edison,  Thomas  A.,  238. 

Edmunds,  Senator  George  F.,  242. 

Education,  in  the  colonies,  33,  34,  54, 
56,  58;  gifts  for  the  advancement 
of,  268;  the  public-school  system, 
270;  colleges  and  universities,  270, 
271;  industrial  and  trade  schools, 
271,  272. 


294 


INDEX 


Education  Board,  the  General,  268. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  leader  of  the 
"Great  Revival,"  53,  56. 

Electricity,  uses  of,  238,  239. 

Eliot,  Dr.  Charles  W.,  quoted,  236, 
238,  273. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  of  England,  10, 
18,  19,  20,  22. 

Embargo  act,  the,  119,  120. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  his  poems, 
165;  his  essays,  168. 

Endicott,  John,  29. 

Eric  the  Red,  voyage  of,  4. 

Ericsson,  John,  inventor  of  the  screw 
propeller,  147. 

Erie  Canal,  the,  127,  128,  130. 

Essex,  the,  American  ship,  123. 

Estaing,  Count  d',  74. 

Everett,  Edward,  156. 

Exports  from  the  United  States,  115, 
116,  1 20,  144;  agricultural,  150; 
of  foodstuffs,  28  2 ;  value  of ,  in  19 1 1 , 
286;  value  of  iron  and  steel  ex 
ports,  287. 

Farms  in  the  United  States,  value  of, 
279;  value  of  products  of,  150, 
279,  280;  282. 

Farragut,  Admiral  David  G.,  192, 
196,  198. 

Federalists,  the,  94;  win  first  elec 
tion,  95;  birth  of  the  Federalist 
party,  97,  98;  its  decline,  98-102; 
annihilation  of,  126. 

Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  of  Spain, 
12. 

Field,  Cyrus  W.,  and  the  Atlantic 
cable,  234. 

Fish,  Hamilton,  220. 

Fisheries  of  the  Atlantic  coast,  286. 

Fisk,  James,  Jr.,  216. 

Fiske,  John,  quoted,  94,  259 

Fitch,  John,  his  steam-boat,  103, 
112. 

Flagg,  Ernest,  264. 

Florida  purchased  from  Spain,  135. 

Florida,  the,  Confederate  cruiser, 
221. 

Forbes,  General  John,  45. 


Forrest,  General  N.  B.,  200. 

Francis  I,  king  of  France,  14,  16. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  his  Poor  Rich 
ard's  Almanac,  56;  60;  his  views  on 
independence,  65,  66;  74,  79;  his 
project  for  a  federal  union,  84;  92. 

Frauds,  political,  213,  214;  among 
public  officials,  216,  217. 

Freer,  Charles  L.,  266. 

Fremont,  John  C.,  136,  178. 

French  and  Indian  War,  36,  42-46. 

French,  Daniel  C.,  262. 

Frick,  Henry  C.,  266. 

Frolic,  the,  in  sea  fight,  123. 

Frontenac,  Count,  governor  of  New 
France,  43. 

Fugitive  Slave  law  passed,  175,  178. 

Fuller,  George,  262. 

Fulton,  Robert,  and  the  Clcrmont, 
112. 

Furness,  Horace  Howard,  his  Vari 
orum  Shakespeare,  259. 

Gallatin,  Albert,  107. 

Gardner,  Mrs.  John  L.,  266. 

Garfield,  President  James  A.,  219. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  165,  173, 
174. 

Gates,  General  Horatio,  72;  defeat 
ed  at  Camden,  76;  81. 

George  III,  king  of  England,  58; 
attitude  of,  toward  the  colonies, 
59,  60,  62,  68. 

Georgia  colony,  the,  52. 

General  Amnesty  bill,  213. 

Geneva  Tribunal  of  Arbitration, 
award  of,  194,  220. 

Germantown,  battle  of,  72. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  165. 

Gilbert,  Cass,  264. 

Goethals,  Colonel  George  W.,  his 
work  on  the  Panama  Canal,  254. 

Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang,  influence 
of,  on  American  literature,  156. 

Gold,  discovery  of,  in  California. 
136;  speculation  in,  216;  increase 
in  production  of,  232;  mined  in 
the  world  in  1910,  283,  284. 

Gorman,  Arthur  P.,  225,  226,  227. 


INDEX 


295 


Gould,  Jay,  and  gold  speculation, 
216. 

Grady,  Henry  W.,  quoted,  222. 

Grant,  General  Ulysses  S.,  at  Fort 
Donelson  and  Shiloh,  190;  at 
Vicksburg,  190,  195;  his  Chatta 
nooga  campaign,  192;  196;  in 
the  Wilderness  campaign,  198;  at 
Appomattqx  Court  House,  199; 
200,  202;  the  prey  of  unscrupu 
lous  schemers,  208,  214-217;  219, 
220,  221;  his  veto  of  the  Inflation 
bill,  228,  229;  234. 

Grasse,  Count  de,  French  fleet 
under,  sent  to  aid  the  colonists, 

78,  79- 

Gray,  Captain  Robert,  discovery  of 
the  Columbia  River  by,  no,  in. 

"Great  Revival,"  the,  53,  56. 

Greeley,  Horace,  185,  196. 

Greene,  General  Francis  V.,  cited, 
69. 

Greene,  General  Nathanael,  suc 
ceeds  General  Gates,  76. 

Guerriere,  the  British  frigate,  122, 
140. 

Hakluyt,  Richard,  the  influence  of 
the  collected  narratives  of,  20. 

Hale,  John  P.,  178. 

Half  Moon,  the,  27. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  92,  94;  secre 
tary  of  the  treasury  under  Wash 
ington,  96;  his  plans  and  financial 
policy,  96,  97;  leader  of  the  Fed 
eralist  party,  97,  98,  100. 

Hampden,  John,  26. 

Harold  Fairhair,  king  of  Norway,  3. 

Harriman,  Edward  H.,  244. 

Harrison,  President  Benjamin,  226, 
242. 

Harte,  Bret,  his  short  stories,  260, 
261. 

Hartford  colony,  the,  31. 

Hartford  Convention,  the,  126. 

Harvard  College  founded,  33,  56. 

Harvard,  John,  29,  33. 

Hastings,  Thomas,  264. 

Havemeyer,  Mrs.  Wm.  T.,  266. 


Hawaiian    Islands,    annexation    of, 

253- 

Hawkins,  Sir  John,  18. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  his  The  Scar 
let  Letter,  157,  160;  other  works 
of,  160. 

Hay,  John,  253. 

Hayes,  President  Rutherford  B., 
221. 

Henry,  Patrick,  64. 

Henry,  Prince,  of  Portugal,  his 
school  of  navigators,  6,  7. 

Henry  VII,  king  of  England,  10. 

Henry  VIII,  king  of  England,  18. 

Hepburn,  A.  Barton,  232. 

Higginson,  Henry  L.,  267. 

Hill,  David  B.,  225,  226. 

Hill,  James  J.,  244. 

Hill,  Joseph  A.,  275. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  161;  es 
says  of,  166. 

Homer,  Winslow,  262. 

Hood,  General  John  B.,  198,  200. 

Hooker,  General  Joseph,  188,  189, 
192. 

Howard,  Lord,  of  Efifingham,  gov 
ernor  of  Virginia,  33. 

Howe,  Elias,  invents  the  sewing- 
machine,  135. 

Howe,  General  George  Augustus,  45. 

Howe,  General  Sir  William,  65,  69, 
72,  74,  76. 

Howells,  William  D.,  literary  career 
of,  261. 

Hudson,  Henry,  expedition  of,  27. 

Hughes,  Justice  Charles  E.,  245. 

Huguenots,  massacre  of,  in  Florida, 
16,  18. 

Hull,  Captain  Isaac,  122. 

Hull,  General  William,  his  surrender 
to  Brock,  124. 

Hunt,  Richard  M.,  264. 

Huntington,  Collis  P.,  266. 

Hutchinson,  Ann,  30. 

Immigration  to  the  United  States, 
its  causes  and  the  quality  of,  132; 
increase  in,  134,  276;  destination 
of,  134,  277;  nationalities  repre- 


296 


INDEX 


sented,  276;  percentage  of  foreign 
element  in  different  states,  277. 

Imports  of  the  United  States,  115, 
144,150;  of  foodstuffs,  282;  value 
of.  in  1911,  286. 

Indians,  origin  of  the  name,  8; 
Dutch  and  English  alliance  with 
the  Five  Nations  of,  32,  33,  36,  38; 
French  alliance  with  the  Algon 
quin,  33,  3^,  36,  38;  in  King 
William's  War,  43;  in  Queen 
Anne's  War,  43,  44;  campaign 
against  the  Seminole,  135. 

Inflation  bill,  the,  Grant's  veto  of, 

221,    228,   22Q. 

Inness,  George,  262. 

Institutions,  gifts  to,  264,  268,  270. 

Interstate  Commerce  law,  the,  240, 
246. 

Inventions,  the  cotton-gin,  102;  130, 
134,  135,  147,  238,  239. 

Iron,  production  of,  283,  287. 

Irving,  Washington,  his  Knicker 
bocker  History  of  Xcw  York,  27, 
157;  quoted,  156;  \\\sSkctch-Book, 
and  other  works  of,  157,  159;  162. 

Jackson,  President  Andrew,  in  the 
battle  of  New  Orleans,  124;  in 
Seminole  War,  135;  and  the  new 
Democracy,  137;  139. 

Jackson,  General  T.  J.  ("Stone 
wall"),  l88,  200,  202. 

James,  Henry,  his  novels  and  stories, 
260. 

James,  William,  his  contributions 
to  psychology,  260. 

James  I,  king  of  England,  47. 

Jameson,  Leander  Starr,  235. 

Jamestown,  Va.,  settlement  of,   22, 

24,  36- 

Java,  the,  British  frigate,  122. 

Jay,  John,  94,  98;   quoted,  212. 

Jay  Treaty,  the,  98,  99. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  quoted  on  the 
object  of  the  war,  66;  elected 
Vice-President,  95;  leader  of  the 
Republican  party,  97, ^  98,  100; 
inauguration  of,  as  President,  105; 


his  purchase  of  Louisiana,  105, 
106,  107,  108;  his  love  of  peace, 
106,  107;  organizes  Lewis  and 
Clark  expedition,  109;  his  action 
against  the  Barbary  pirates,  112; 
114;  attitude  of,  toward  the 
merchant  marine,  117;  119,  120, 
138,  169. 

Jewett,  Sarah  Orne,  261. 

Johnson,  President  Andrew,  212. 

Johnson,  John  G.,  266. 

Johnston,  General  A.  S.,  190,  200, 

202. 

Johnston,   General  Joseph  E.,   188, 

192,  198,  200. 
Joliet,  Louis,  reaches  the  Mississippi, 

38. 

Jones,  Paul,  his  capture  of  the  Sera- 
pis,  80. 

Kansas-Nebraska  act,  the,  176,  177, 

182. 
Kentucky  resolutions  of  1798,  the, 

100. 

King  William's  War,  43. 
Kingsley,  Charles,  his  Westward  Ho!, 

18. 

Kip's  Bay,  battle  of,  69. 
Kirk,  David,  42. 
Knox,  Philander  C.,  253. 
Ku  Klux  Klan,  the,  210. 

Labor  problems,  289. 

La  Farge,  John,  262,  264. 

Lafayette,  Marquis  de,  81. 

Lake  Champlain,  Macdonough's  vic 
tory  on,  124. 

Lake  Erie,  Perry's  victory  on,  124. 

Lanier,  Sidney,  262. 

La  Salle,  Robert  de,  explorations  of, 
38,  40;  establishes  French  claim 
to  the  water-shed  of  the  Missis 
sippi,  40. 

Laud,  Archbishop,  26,  31. 

Laudonniere,  Rene  de,  Huguenot 
leader,  16. 

Ledyard,  John,  no. 

Lee,  Arthur,  74. 

Lee,  Charles,  treachery  of,  74,  81. 


INDEX 


297 


Lee,  Richard  Henry,  27. 
Lee,  General  Robert  E.,  188,   192; 
surrender  of,  to  General   Grant, 

199;    200,    202,    206. 

Leif  Ericsson,  discovery  of  Vinland 
by,  4,  5- 

Leopard,  the,  122. 

Lesseps,  Ferdinand  de,  founder  of 
French  Panama  Company,  253. 

Lewis,  Meriwether,  expedition  of, 
108,  no,  in. 

Lincoln,  President  Abraham,  159; 
debates  of,  180,  182;  elected 
President,  182,  183;  his  appeal 
for  preservation  of  the  Union,  185, 
186;  dominating  figure  in  Civil 
War,  187;  192,  193;  influence  of 
his  Emancipation  Proclamation, 
194;  re-elected,  196,  198;  assas 
sination  of,  206;  character  of,  206, 

207;   212,    223,   289. 

Lincoln,  General  Benjamin,  defeated 

at  Charleston,  76. 
Literature  in  the  United  States,  155 

et  seq.,  258  et  seq. 
Livermore,  Thomas  L.,  his  Numbers 

and  Losses  in  the  Civil   War  in 

America,  203,  204,  206. 
Livingston,    Robert     R.,    64,    106, 

112. 
Lodge,      Senator      Henry      Cabot, 

quoted,  97. 

London  Times,  the,  quoted,  144. 
Long  Island,  battle  of,  69. 
Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  the 

poetry  of,  164;  168. 
Louis  XIV,  king  of  France,  40,  42. 
Louis  XV,  king  of  France,  42. 
Louisburg,  capture  of,  44. 
Louisiana  purchase,  the,   105,   106, 

107,  108. 

Lounsbury,  Thomas  R.,  158,  259. 
Lowell,  A.  Lawrence,  his  The  Govern 
ment  of  England,  260. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  the  poetry  of, 

162,  164;   his  essays,  168,  177. 

McClellan,  General  George  B.,  188, 
as  a  commander,  189;  198,  199. 


McCormick,  Cyrus  Hall,  inventor 
of  reaping  machine,  135. 

McCunn,  Judge,  216. 

Macdonough,  Commander  Thomas, 
victory  of,  in  the  battle  of  Lake 
Champlain,  124. 

McKay,  Donald,  Boston  ship 
builder,  149. 

McKim,  Charles  F.,  264. 

McKinley,  President  William,  232, 
245;  and  the  war  with  Spain,  249; 

253- 

McMaster,  John  B.,  259. 

MacMonnies,  Frederick,  262. 

Macedonian,  the,  British  frigate, 
122. 

Madison,  President  James,  27,  92, 
94;  joins  the  Republican  party, 
97,  100,  107;  attitude  toward  the 
merchant  marine,  117;  120,  122, 
138,  169. 

Magellan,  Ferdinand,  voyage  of,  12, 

13- 

Mahan,  Admiral  A.  T.,  quoted,  252; 
260. 

Maine,  the,  destruction  of,  249. 

Manufacturing  industries,  138;  re 
markable  growth  of,  278,  279. 

Marquette,  James,  reaches  the  Mis 
sissippi,  38. 

Marshall,  John,  Virginia  jurist,  27, 
107. 

Martin,  Homer,  262. 

Maryland  colony,  the,  settlement 
of,  28;  royal  authority  in,  51;  52. 

Mason,  James  M.,  in  the  Trent  af 
fair,  193. 

Massachusetts  Bay  colony,  the,  24, 
26,  29,  30,  31,  33,  47,  48,  50,  52, 
62,  64,  84. 

Mayflower,  the,  24,  26. 

Meade,  General  George  G.,  192,  200. 

Mercator,  Gerard,  his  map  of  1541, 

ii,  13- 

Merchant  marine,  the  American,  98, 
114,  117-120,  144,  148,  150,  152, 

153; 

Merrimac,  the,  results  of  fight  of, 
with  the  Monitor,  195. 


298 


INDEX 


Mexican  War,  135,  136. 

Millet,  Frank  D.,^  264. 

Milton,  John,  30. 

Mineral    resources    of    the    United 

States,  283,  284. 

Missouri  Compromise,  173,  176,  181. 
Mobile  Bay,  battle  of,  196. 
Monetary  Commission,  the  National, 

233- 
Monitor,  the,  results  of  fight  of,  with 

the  Merrimac,  195. 
Monmouth,  battle  of,  74,  76. 
Monroe  Doctrine,  139,  140,  233,  234, 

235- 
Monroe,  President  James,  27,   106, 

138,  139- 

Montcalm,  General  Marquis  de,  45. 
Montezuma  II,  14. 
Montreal,  fall  of,  45. 
Morgan,  Daniel,  76. 
Morgan,  J.  Pierpont,  gifts  of,  266, 

268. 
Morse,  Professor  S.  F.  B.,  and  the 

telegraph,  135. 
Motley,    John    Lothrop,    165;     his 

Rise  of  the   Dutch   Republic   and 

History  of  the  United  Netherlands, 

166. 
Music,   increased   interest   in,    266, 

267. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte,  105,  106,  107, 
108,  124. 

Napoleon  III,  194. 

Navigation  laws,  50. 

Necessity,  Fort,  Washington  defeat 
ed  at,  44. 

Negro  slave  labor,  introduced,  24; 
83,  93,  103,  138;  attitude  of  South 
toward,  169;  African  slave  trade, 
170;  the  domestic  trade,  171;  172; 
anti-slavery  crusade,  173-175; 
turning-point  fn  history  of  slavery, 
176,  177;  178;  Dred  Scott  case, 
180,  181,  182;  Emancipation 
Proclamation,  194;  negro  suf 
frage,  209-213,  252^ 

New  Hampshire  colony7~tk£,  48- 

New  Haven  colony,  the,  3i7>^  84. 


New  Jersey  colony,  the,  52. 

New  Netherland,  Dutch  occupation 
of,  27,  28,  34;  royal  governors  in 
New  York,  48. 

New  Orleans,  battle  of,  124;  capt 
ure  of,  192,  195. 

Newspapers,  in  the  colonies,  56; 
printed  on  cylinder  presses,  135. 

Niagara,  Fort,  45. 

Nicollet,  Jean,  38. 

Nina,  the,  Columbus's  ship,  8. 

Non-intercourse  law,  the,  120. 

North,  Lord  Frederick,  59;  his  bills, 
62. 

Oglethorpe,    Governor     James,    of 

Georgia,  52. 

Olaf,  king  of  Norway,  4. 
Olney,  Richard,  secretary  of  state, 

234- 

Ordinance  of  1787,  the,  88-90. 
Oregon,  the,  its  voyage  around  South 

America,  250,  253. 

Pacific  Mail  Company,  the,  147, 
148. 

Pacific  Ocean,  discovery  of,  12,  13. 

Page,  Thomas  Nelson,  261. 

Paine,  Thomas,  his  Common  Sense, 
70. 

Painters  and  sculptors,  262. 

Panama  Canal,  the,  250,  253,  254. 

Panic  of  1837,  138,  139;  of  1873, 
218,  219;  of  1893,  231,  232;  of 
1907,  232. 

Paris,  Comte  de,  quoted,  192. 

Parkman,  Francis,  165;  his  Cali 
fornia  and  Oregon  Trail  and  Con 
spiracy  of  Pontiac,  166. 

Peabody,  George,  bequests  of,  268. 

Peary,  Commander,  arctic  explora 
tions  of,  273. 

Pemberton,  General  John  C.,  190. 

Pendleton  Civil  Service  law,  the, 
236. 

Pendleton,  Edmund,  27. 

Penn,  William,  28,  31,  32,  51. 

Pennsylvania  Railway  Station,  the. 
274. 


INDEX 


299 


Pennsylvania  colony,  the,  settle 
ment  of,  28,  29;  proprietary  gov 
ernment  in,  51;  52. 

Pennsylvania,  University  of,  found 
ed,  56. 

Pension  legislation,  226,  227. 

Pepperell,  Sir  William,  captures 
Louisburg,  44. 

Perry,  Oliver  Hazard,  his  victory  on 
Lake  Erie,  124. 

Petroleum,  production  of,  283. 

Philadelphia  Exposition  of  1876, 
262. 

Philip  II,  king  of  Spain,  12,  16,  18. 

Philippine  Islands,  United  States 
ownership  of,  2=52,  253. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  185. 

Phips,  Sir  William,  royal  governor  of 
Massachusetts,  52. 

Phoebe,  the,  British  frigate,  123. 

Pierce,  President  Franklin,  176,  180. 

Pike,  Captain  Zebulon  Montgomery, 
expeditions  of,  in. 

Pilgrims,  the,  24,  26. 

Pinta,  the,  Columbus's  ship,  8. 

Pitt,  William,  Earl  of  Chatham,  suc 
cess  of  his  plan  of  operations 
against  the  French,  44,  45;  59,  60. 

Pittsburg  Landing,  battle  of,  190. 

Pizarro,  Francisco,  his  conquest  of 
Peru,  13. 

Plymouth  colony  founded  by  the 
Pilgrims,  24,  26,  84. 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  156,  157;  the  tales 
of,  159,  160,  162. 

Political  reforms,  288. 

Polo,  Marco,  effect  of  his  tales  of 
travel,  6,  8. 

Pontiac,  conspiracy  of,  46. 

Pope,  General  John,  188,  189. 

Population,  growth  of,  in  the  col 
onies,  51;  increase  in,  103,  116, 
130,  132,  137,  275;  westward 
movement  of  centre  of,  104,  127, 
130,  132,  136,  137. 

Porter,  Commander  David  D.,  192. 

Post,  George  B.,  264. 

Preble,  Captain  George  Henry,  and 
the  Barbary  pirates,  112. 


Prescott,  William  H.,  historical  writ 
ings  of,  165,  166. 

Princeton,  battle  of,  70,  72. 

Princeton,  the,  warship,  147. 

Princeton  University  founded,  56. 

Privateers,  American,  79,  80;  rav 
ages  of,  125. 

Pulitzer,  Joseph,  bequests  of,  270. 

Puritans,  the,  24,  26,  28,  29,  30,  31, 
52,  53,  54- 

Pym,  John,  26. 

Quakers,  the,  28,  30,  31. 
Quebec,  founded  by  Champlain,  36; 
under  English  rule,  40,  42;  fall  of, 

45- 
Queen  Anne's  War,  43,  44. 

Railroads  in  the  United  States,  130, 
209;  increase  in  building  of,  218, 
241;  great  railway  corporations, 
219,  220,  241,  242,  244. 

Randall,  Samuel  J.,  225. 

Randolph,  John,  27. 

Ranken,  David,  Jr.,  gift  of,  268. 

Rawdon,  Lord,  78. 

Reconstruction  act,  the,  210,  212. 

Religious  worship  in  America,  29 
el  seq.;  progress  toward  greater 
freedom  in,  52,  53,  54,  83,  84, 
89. 

Republican  party,  the,  97-100;  ori 
gin  of,  178;  180,  183,  196,  198, 

199,    209,    212,    214,    220,    221,    223; 

and  the  tariff,  224  et  seq. 

Revolutionary  War,  69-81;  condi 
tions  at  the  close  of,  82  et  seq. 

Rhode  Island  colony,  the,  48. 

Rhodes,  James  Ford,  his  history  of 
the  United  States,  259. 

Ribaut,  Jean,  Huguenot  leader, 
16. 

Richardson,  H.  H.,  264. 

Riley,  James  Whitcomb,  262. 

Ringmann,  Matthias,  n. 

Roads,  127;  the  Cumberland  Road 
constructed,  127,  128. 

Rockefeller,  John  D.,  gifts  of,  268. 

Rolfe,  John,  22. 


3oo 


INDEX 


Roosevelt,  President  Theodore,  his 
Naval  War  of  1812,  123;  civil  ser 
vice  reforms  of,  236;  his  action 
regarding  trusts,  245-248;  and  the 
Panama  Canal,  253;  his  services 
to  the  nation,  256,  257. 

Roosevelt  dam,  the,  274. 

Royal  governors,  the  colonies  under, 

48,  50,  51- 

Rutgers  College  founded,  58. 
Rutgers,  Henry,  his  name  given  to 

Queen's  College,  58. 
Ryswick,  the  peace  of,  43. 

St.  Augustine,  founded,  1565,  18. 

Saint-Gaudens,  Augustus,  262. 

Salisbury.,  Lord,  235. 

Sampson,  Admiral  William  T.,  250. 

Santa  Maria,  the,  Columbus's  ship,  8. 

Saratoga,  battle  of,  72. 

Sargent,  John  S.,  262,  264. 

Saybrook  Synod,  the,  ecclesiastical 
system  adopted  by,  53. 

Schouler,  James,  259. 

Schuyler,  Philip,  64. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  influence  of,  on 
American  literature,  156,  157,  158. 

Scott,  General  Winfield,  135. 

Seamen,  American,  British  impress 
ment  of,  117  et  seq.,  140;  enter 
prise  of,  141. 

Serapis,  the,  captured  by  Paul  Jones 
80. 

Seven  Years'  War,  the,  42. 

Seward,  William  H.,  178;  and  the 
Trent  affair,  193;  his  purchase  of 
Alaska,  233,  234. 

Shannon,  the,  British  frigate,  123. 

Shays,  Daniel,  rebellion  of,  90. 

Shenandoah,  the,  Confederate  cruiser, 
221. 

Sheridan,  General  Philip  H.,  192, 
198,  200. 

Sherman  Anti-trust  bill,  240,  241, 
242,  243,  248. 

Sherman  Silver  Purchase  bill,  the, 
230,  231,  234. 

Sherman,  General  William  T.,  192, 
196,  198,  200,  202. 


Ship-building,  141  et  seq.;  the  Yan 
kee  packet  ship,  142,  144;  the 
American  clipper  ships,-  149,  150; 
free  materials  for,  153,  154. 

Shipping,  American,  in  foreign  trade, 
114,  115;  indignities  suffered  by, 
117-122;  activity  in,  141  et  seq.; 
tonnage  figures  of,  148,  149; 
causes  of  decline  in,  152,  153;  195. 

Silver,   production  and  coinage  of, 

229,  230;    legislation  in  favor  of, 

230,  231;   end  of  free  silver  agita 
tion,  232. 

Silver  Purchase  bill,  the,  see  Sher 
man. 

Simmons,  Edward,  264. 
Slidell,    John,    in   the    Trent   affair, 

193- 

Sloane,  William  M.,  259. 
South,  the,  economic  changes  in,  138; 

slavery  in,  169  et  seq.]    secession 

in,  182  et  seq.;  conditions  in,  after 

the  war,  199,  200;    prosperity  in, 

284,  286. 
Spanish- American  War,  156;  effects 

of,  243;  causes  of,  248,  249;  two 

military  lessons  of,  250. 
Spotswood,  Alexander,  50. 
Stamp  Act,  the,  60.  62,  64,  65. 
Standard  Oil  case,  the,  240,  246,  248. 
Steam-boats,  103,  112,  146,  147. 
Stedman,  Edmund  C.,  161. 
Steers,  George,  147. 
Stephens,  Alexander  H.,  183,  184. 
Stephenson,  George,  inventor  of  the 

locomotive,  130. 
Steuben,  Baron,  81. 
Stoddard,  Richard  H.,  262. 
Stowe,   Harriet   Beecher,    158;    her 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  161,  178. 
Stuart,  General  J.  E.  B.,  188,  200, 

202. 
Stuyvesant,  Peter,  governor  of  New 

Netherland,  34. 
Sullivan,  Louis  H.,  264. 
Sumner,  Senator  Charles,  178;    as 
sault  of  Brooks  upon,   180,   181; 

212. 
Sumter,  Fort,  attack  upon,  186,  187. 


INDEX 


301 


Supreme  Court  decisions,  the  Dred 
Scott  case,  180,  181,  182;  Stand 
ard  Oil  Company  case  and  Amer 
ican  Tobacco  Company  case,  240, 
246,  248. 

Swinburne,  Algernon  C.,  quoted,  161. 

Taft,  President  William  H.,  and 
civil  service  reform,  236;  248,  253. 

Tammany  Hall  under  Tweed,  213, 
214,  216. 

Tariff,  legislation,  137,  138;  Payne- 
Aldrich  bill,  153,  227,  228;  re 
forms  in,  223  et  seq.-y  Morrill  bill, 
224;  Morrison  bill,  225;  Mills 
bill,  226;  Wilson  bill,  226,  227; 
McKinley  bill,  226,  227;  Dingley 
bill,  227,  243. 

Tarleton,  Colonel  Banastre,  76. 

Taylor,  General  Zachary,  135. 

Texas,  independence  of,  135;  ad 
mitted  to  Union,  136. 

Thomas,  Augustus,  267. 

Thomas,   General   George  II.,    192, 

200,    2O2. 

Ticknor,  George,  156. 

Ticonderoga,  Fort,  45. 

Tobacco  culture,  development  of, 
22;  exports  of,  116. 

Toombs,  Robert,  183. 

Toscanelli,  Paolo  del  Pozzo  dei,  Ve 
netian  astronomer  and  geogra 
pher,  7,  8. 

Townshend  acts,  the,  62. 

Townshend,  Charles,  59. 

Treaty,  of  commerce  and  alliance 
with  France,  74;  of  1783  with 
England,  79;  of  1794  with  Eng 
land,  98,  99;  of  Washington,  220. 

Trent,  the,  affair,  193. 

Trenton,  battle  of,  70,  72. 

Trusts,  240  et  seq.;  dangers  of,  245, 

257- 

Turner,  C.  Y.,  264. 
Twain,  Mark  (Samuel  Clemens),  his 

Life  on  the  Mississippi  River,  Tom 

Sawyer     and     Huckleberry    Finn, 

258,  260. 
Tweed,  William  M.,  213,  214,  216. 


United  States,  the.  United  States 
frigate;  122. 

Valley  Forge,  Washington  at,  74. 

Vasco  da  Gama,  Portuguese  naviga 
tor,  voyage  of,  8. 

Vedder,  Elihu,  262. 

Venezuela  boundary  dispute,  139, 
234-236,  2=;o. 

Verrazzano,  Giovanni  da,  voyage  of, 
14. 

Vespucci,  Amerigo,  expeditions  of, 
ii. 

Vicksburg,  capture  of,  190,  192,  195. 

Victory,  the,  195. 

Vikings,  origin  of  the  name,  3;  voy 
ages  of,  4,  5. 

Virginia  colony,  the,  22,  24,  26,  27, 
29  et  seq.;  royal  governors  in,  48, 
50,  52;  53,  64. 

Virginia  resolutions  of  1798,  the,  100. 

Waldseemuller,  Martin,  n. 

War  of  1812.  the,  117-126,  127,  140, 
141,  193. 

Ward,  J.  0-  A.,  262. 

Warner,  OJin  L.,  262. 

Washington,  Fort,  British  capture 
of,  69. 

Washington,  George,  27;-  defeated 
at  Fort  Necessity,  44;  his  views 
on  independence,  66;  at  Dor 
chester  Heights  and  the  battle 
of  Long  Island,  69;  his  victory  at 
Trenton  and  Princeton,  70,  72; 
defeated  in  battles  of  the  Brandy- 
wine  and  Germantown,  72;  un 
successful  defense  of  New  York, 
74;  at  Valley  Forge,  74;  at  battle 
of  Monmouth,  74;  two  strategic 
principles  of,  75,  76;  at  Yorktown, 
78;  character  of ,  80;  his  greatness 
in  overcoming  obstacles,  80,  81; 
his  plan  for  a  national  system,  87; 
91,  92;  chosen  President,  95;  96, 
103,  108,  243. 

Wasp,  the,  in  sea  fight,  123. 

Webster,  Daniel,  quoted,  89;  175, 
184. 


302 


INDEX 


Wesley,  John,  53. 

Whale-fisheries  in  New  P^ngland,  114, 

145,  146. 

Wharton,  Edith,  261. 
Wheelock,  Rev.  Eleazer,  58. 
\Vhigs,  the,  origin  of,  138. 
Whistler,  J.  A.  McN.,  262. 
White,  Stanford,  264. 
Whitefield,  George,  and  the  "Great 

Revival,"  53. 
Whitman,  Walt,  258,  259. 
Whitney,   Eli,   and   the  cotton-gin, 

102,  103,  115. 
Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  the  poetry 

of,  164,  165. 
Widener,  P.  A.  B.,  266. 
Wilkins    (Freeman),    Mary    E., 

261. 

Wilkinson,  General  James,  in. 
William     and     Mary,     College     of, 

founded,  56. . 


William  and  Mary,  sovereigns  of 
England,  42,  47,  48,  50. 

William  Henry,  Fort,  45. 

Williams,  Roger,  30,  32. 

Wilson,  Henry,  his  'Rise  and  Fall  of 
the  Slave  Power  in  America,  171; 
178,  219. 

Wrinthrop,  John,  governor  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  31,  47,  52. 

Witchcraft  in  Salem  Village,  47. 

Wolfe,  General  James,  45. 

Woodberry,  George  E.,  his  Appre 
ciation  of  Literature  and  The 
Torch,  260;  273. 

Wright,  Wilbur  and  Orville,  and  the 
aeroplane,  239. 

Wyant,  Alexander  H.,  262. 

Wyman,  Isaac  C.,  bequest  of,  268. 

Yale  University  founded,  56. 
Yorktown,  victory  at,  76,  78,  79. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OP  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


.  ; 

. 

-  "?  •»  *              * 

4   l\!ov'57fC 

REC'D  LD 

•  jfcHfti        fl-n    1  IT 

iJWA&$ 

CCP  ogjQR? 

Re€'&°LD 

MAQ  2    IPS/ 

LD21-100m-7,'40(6936s) 

VB  37170 


in 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


